Stepping into youth, crossing yet another milestone of childhood’s developmental
stages, a lot of changes in perception, behavior, thought, and understanding comes in.
Working with teenagers, no matter from which part of the country they belong from,
along with puberty one other thing that comes into focus is a teen’s consciousness of
self, how they look, if they are beautiful/handsome, and questions about their physical
attributes that keep them pondering and engrossed in searching,understanding their
identity, creating their own persona in the world. Bringing all these concerns to a rest, a
workshop for 8th graders was conducted on understanding what body image is , how is
it intertwined with every aspect of our life, how essential it is to have a realistic
perception, inculcating the awareness of disorders that teenagers are prone to due to
preoccupations and faulty self image.

The workshop followed a fun and an educative approach, instilling a deeper
understanding of body image and how to fight unrealistic beauty standards that the
social media portrays, building a healthy and realistic relationship with oneself. Parental
perspectives collide with what the child learns and sees in the world starting from
televisions, beauty magazines, social media, generating a confused search for
“perfection”. Few major Disorders that the workshop addressed but not limiting to
includes Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge eating and Body Dismorphic
disorders, giving an experiential perspective of how faulty perceptions of self, with
prolonged repeated believes can lead to extreme conditions affecting an individual’s
regular functionality.

Body image is an integral part of self concept which includes how we feel, perceive,
think and act in context to the understanding we carry about our body. Commencement
of youth brings forth the search for self identity, resulting in a higher risk of developing
issues related to body image,self esteem, confidence, which may eventually emanate
to social withdrawal and other such consequences that takes years to work through and
overcome. Child’s body image is influenced by many external factors like family
environment, the attitudes of peers, social media, cultural background and many such
intertwined aspects of an individual’s life. Internalizing these factors followed by
pressure to conform to these socially prescribed idealistic body ideals are other internal
factors which influence body image.

The workshop majorly targeted to set in concepts of body neutrality, identifying and
living with a realistic healthy body image, to eradicate discrimination, biasness and any
form of negative environment that the child has inbuilt in his/ her belief system.

Click here for the album: https://appollonps.com/gallery/students-workshop-flawed-and-unique/

The Counseling Team,
Ms. Aishwarya Nambiar
Ms. Rakshitha V