Dressing Room Project on Northshor
Dressing Room Project visits Northshore Schools
by Karina Hunter
Janice L Piper, Public Health Nutritionist TBDHU and Karen DeGagne, Regional Resource Clinician with the Eating Disorders Program from St. Joseph’s Care Group visited Northshore Elementary Schools this week with the “Dressing Room Project” an initiative originally launched in Thunder Bay December 2009. They were speaking with Grade 7 and 8 girls about living healthy lifestyles, having positive body images and being critical of media images which may pressure young women to seek an unattainable physical perfection.
“Young girls are very vulnerable to marketing images they see all around them,” says Janice Piper, a Public Health Nutritionist at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit. “We are concerned that teens are suffering from low self-esteem and putting their own health at risk in attempt to conform to the airbrushed models they see in advertising. Feelings of low self-esteem can cause problems in school and with friends, and can escalate into anxiety and depression.”
The girls created positive message cards to remind them when they look in the mirror that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. Selected cards created by Thunder Bay students have already been made into mirror decals and posted in dressing rooms around the city and communities visited this week. Buttons and advertisements on Thunder Bay city transit buses were also produced to promote the campaign.
Piper and DeGagne have a great chemistry when presenting which works to keep audiences engaged even when topics could otherwise become too clinical.
“We designed this initiative to help teenage girls broaden their definition of “beautiful”,” says Karen DeGagne, a Social Worker with St. Joseph’s Care Group Regional Eating Disorders Program. “We do this by emphasizing the importance of focusing on their positive qualities, valuing uniqueness in themselves and others and becoming more critical thinkers about the unattainable image of beauty in the media.”
Teen girls say that media exerts the strongest pressure to be thin. Recent studies have found that 30% of Ontario girls aged 10-14 who were at a healthy weight were dieting and by Grade 6, 1 in 4 girls have been on a diet. Also, research has proven that women who begin dieting at young ages are more likely to battle obesity throughout their lives as diets most often result in additional weight gain leaving people heavier post-diet then they were to start with.
“We are excited about the community support for this venture across the Northshore,” says Piper. Attendees at the parent session held at Manitouwadge High School Thursday night included staff from North of Superior Programs, Manitouwadge Best Start Hub, local Girl Guides of Canada volunteers and others working with young women in addition to concerned parents. Piper did emphasize that though girls seem to be affected at a younger age, by High School boys are also falling victim to media pressures with excessive weight training and steroid use still being problematic in Northern Ontario among teenaged boys.
The Dressing Room Project started as a grassroots project in California in the year 2000. Since then, the concept has spread across North America.
In Manitouwadge, Public Health Nurse Jackie Jung, RN, spoke with Piper & DeGagne in advance regarding a session in the evening which would target parents and a session for Grade 9 and 10 girls at Manitouwadge High School in addition to the original Dressing Room Project workshop which was hosted at Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary Friday, May 28th. Response for both was very positive and it is hoped that attendees will take the messages of healthy lifestyles, eating habits and positive body image home with them to spread throughout the community reminding women of all ages that they are beautiful regardless of size or shape. One regional Grade 7 student put it best, explaining that “I think this kind of workshop is important because it helps us to be happy with who we are and not pretend to be someone we’re not. It reminds us not to judge people about stuff like their hair, their eyes, or their clothes. We should compliment each other because it makes us all feel good.”
The campaign designs produced by local teens and more information about the Dressing Room Project can be found online at TBDHU.com.
