Bringing body confidence education to US schools

Project Report | Dec 15, 2021
Fall/Early Winter 2021

By Denise Hamburger | Executive Director of Be Real

Dear Donors,

We are proud to report that BE REAL has had a very productive last half of 2021. Over the summer of 2021 we had 8 fabulous interns join us from the University of Chicago and Harvard University. These are some of the the current projects they contributed their talent to:

1) Spreading our Body Confident Schools workshop around the country. We are working with eating disorder non-profits in Georgia, Iowa, and Minnesota on bringing Body Confident Schools to their communities. We have different strategies for different states. These include giving free webinars to educators as well as training non-profit staff to deliver the workshop.

2) Our Instagram account #BEREAL featured our Understanding Others series, #UNDERSTANDING OTHERS. We collected stories from people with different lived body experience. We posted these stories to Instagram and gave backround research on the issues discussed in people's stories.

3) Student interns researched the body image effects based on a person's race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, size, ability, and socio-economic status. We create material discussing the concept of Appearance Bias and body image.

4) We gathered material for a campaign we plan to begin to stop schools from taking students' BMI in schools. We have joined forces with The Student Body movie creator Baily Weber in our campaign.

5) We talked to Illinois lawmakers Rep.Robyn Gabel and Sen. Laura Fine about legislation keeping Diet Pills and Muscle Building Supplements Out of Kids' Hands.

6) We worked with a team of academics from Ireland, Austraila, and the University of North Carolina on a body image curriculum for high school students. We are testing this in February in Brooklyn Community Schools in Minnesota. The curriculum is called Be Real's BodyKind. I taught this curriculum over the summer and this fall, learning more about the best ways for students to benefit from it.

7) I've joined the Body Freedom Project, a coalition devoted to creating civil rights for people in different sized bodies.

8) I've taken a leadership role in the Collaborative of Eating Disorder Organizations (CEDO), formed from the old NEDA Network of eating disorder organizations.

Thank you for your past support at GlobalGiving. Please consider supporting us in 2021 if you haven't done that yet this year!

Confidently yours,

Denise Hamburger

Executive Director of BE REAL

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Jun 21, 2021
BE REAL Summer 2021

By Denise Hamburger | Executive Director, BE REAL

Thank you for supporting BE REAL in 2020. Twenty-four short months ago when we filed for our 501c3 status, we could not have imagined the successes that these 2 years would bring. We are proud to share them with you, who helped make these possible with your contributions:

We have delivered our teacher professional development workshop called Body Confident Schools to over 1000 teachers, school mental health professionals, and school administrators all over the country.
Our Body Confident Schools workshop has been recommended as a school resource by the Eating Disorder Coalition for Research, Policy and Action to US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.
We are speaking with the CDC's School Health Branch about endorsing our school training.
I spoke at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s eating disorder prevention incubator, STRIPED on 5 Steps to a Body Confident School in December 2020.
We were asked by the Dove Self Esteem Project in London to submit a proposal to create a body image curriculum for high school students.
BE REAL has become a member organization of the Eating Disorder Coalition and a core supporter of proposed federal legislation: Eating Disorder Prevention in the Schools Act (H.R.6703) which will be introduced by Representatives Alma Adams, (D-NC), Vicky Hartzler (R-MO), and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in the 116th Congress.
We worked with Illinois Representative Robyn Gabel on a bill to keep harmful Diet Pills and Muscle Building Supplements Out of Kids Hands (HB3948). We are working to introduce the bill again in the 2021 session.
I was interviewed on ED Matters in July 2020 on Body Confident Schools and featured on the National Eating Disorders Association's podcast and blog.
We have launched a thoughtful, anti-bias social media campaign on Instagram called Understanding Others that describes what it is like to live in bodies that are different colors, sizes, abilities, and genders.
This summer, we have welcomed 7 brilliant student interns from the University of Chicago and Harvard to help with our legislative work, school teacher resources, social media, research on nutrition curricula, and our BE REAL AMBASSADOR program for teachers giving our workshop in their local schools.
I have joined the boards of the national eating disorder nonprofit ANAD and Fed-up, a youth movement focused on shedding light on eating disorders.
BE REAL has formed a diverse, international team of academics and curriculum writers to create a high school anti-bias body image curriculum called Understanding Others. We started piloting this high school curriculum in June with students.

Our 2021 focus is to fund the body image and anti-bias curriculum we are writing for high school students, Understanding Others. This curriculum will be the first of its kind, adding appearance prejudice centered around race, gender, body size and ability to the body image discussion. Appearance is not just about beauty, it is about appearance-based prejudice and how that affects a person's self-worth, equal rights, and opportunities. It is about how valuing diverse bodies leads to valuing diverse individuals. Our vision includes a powerful social justice message layered through each lesson.

Thank you for your support. We hope to continue our work with your continued help. Please contact me with any comments or questions! I'd love to hear from you!

Denise Hamburger

Executive Director, BE REAL

denise@berealusa.org

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Feb 22, 2021
BE REAL 2021

By Denise Hamburger | Executive Director

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