Bringing body confidence education to US schools

Dear Friend,

Today’s young people are spending more than eight hours each day on their phones and computers. They have ample opportunity to compare their appearance to edited and filtered images of people they see on their social media sites. It is not surprising that 77% of adolescents report “body image distress,” feeling dissatisfied with their own appearance. We know that having a negative perception of their bodies leads to serious mental health consequences such as eating disorders, depression, isolation, anxiety, risky sexual behavior, substance abuse, and low self-esteem.

BE REAL is committed to spreading body confidence resources to young people. We have evidence-based workshops for adults and curricula for youth that are designed to help children develop a healthy relationship to food and their body. 

BE REAL has had an incredibly eventful year so far. Thanks to your generous donations, we’ve been able to make it possible for more students, teachers, and parents to have access to our resources. We will continue to use this funding to keep these resources free for those who need them. 

Some of the projects we are currently working on include: 

• BE Real’s BodyKind high school, body image curriculum is now available. It is ready to be used by teachers across the country. In the fall of 2023, we're testing it in 37 schools in Ireland, and we're also collaborating with schools and eating disorder non-profits in Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Rhode Island, Oregon, and Minnesota to bring Body Confident Schools to their communities.
• The BodyKind team published an article in the Body Image research journal. The article focuses on the results from the BodyKind high school body image curriculum pilot study. This publication serves as a confirmation that our curriculum is indeed providing the intended benefits to our students. You can access the article here: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1htnr6BgRu9hvm
• The BE REAL ambassador program is experiencing growth! With 50 ambassadors and additional recruits in the pipeline, our website has undergone transformation into an interactive platform aimed at enhancing the ambassador training experience. Notable organizations that have received training from BE REAL are EDIN, AMY’s Gift, and the Carolina Resource Center for Eating Disorders.
• Denise, the executive director of BE REAL, currently holds the position of Chairperson within the Collaborative of Eating Disorder Organizations (CEDO). She has been a part of CEDO's leadership team for three years, leveraging this role as a valuable networking opportunity for BE REAL.
• BE REAL’s Don’t Weigh Me in School Campaign went viral. In just a single week, our campaign collected over 25,000 signatures. This remarkable response highlights the widespread agreement that using BMI as a metric to assess the health status of students is deeply flawed. It serves no beneficial purpose within our educational institutions.

Thank you for your past support at GlobalGiving. We could use your help now more than ever to distribute BodyKind to high schools all over the globe!

Confidently yours,

Denise Hamburger