In addition, 23% of the male respondents and 51% of the female respondents reported some kind of disordered eating when they started college, such as binge eating, skipping meals, excessive meals or use of food supplements.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2023\/02\/BODY-PROJECT-STICKER-.jpg\")
A sticker advertising The Body Project<\/p><\/div>\n
Blomquist, who had spent years researching body image and disordered eating, knew of a program that might help: The Body Project<\/a>, an evidence-based intervention created by university researchers to confront unrealistic appearance ideals and develop healthy body images.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought, \u2018Why not bring it to Furman?\u2019\u201d said Blomquist.<\/p>\n After intensive coaching by national instructors, Blomquist and a few others began training students as peer leaders. They launched The Body Project at Furman University<\/a> in Fall 2018. Since then, 208 students have participated.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that body dissatisfaction leads to a whole slew of negative outcomes in terms of well-being: depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, disordered eating, suicidality,\u201d said Blomquist, the program\u2019s clinical supervisor. \u201cSo, targeting body image is actually a particularly important prevention tool.\u201d<\/p>\n Students who sign up are divided into groups of about 10. Each group meets with their peer leaders for two two-hour sessions, one week apart. The goal is to identify the appearance ideal \u2013 \u201cwhat we\u2019re told we should look like,\u201d said Blomquist \u2013 proliferated by the media, the fashion industry and other social influences.<\/p>\n That ideal is not only a lie, it\u2019s a dangerous and insidious one, said peer leader Mary Morrison \u201923.<\/p>\n \u201cI personally experienced many years hating my body because it wasn\u2019t what society told me a woman should look like,\u201d said Morrison, a psychology major. \u201cWe are given messages about an \u2018ideal body\u2019 type as early as childhood, and these messages continue throughout development and well into adulthood, for both women and men.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about identifying the messages about appearance being sold to us,\u201d Blomquist said, \u201cand then it\u2019s about identifying the costs to internalizing those messages.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just financial cost, said Body Project administrative co-supervisor Gwen Hirko, health promotions coordinator in Furman\u2019s Division of Student Life. In addition to negative mental health outcomes, body image issues can also distract students and drag down GPAs.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re focusing on how you look and how other people are perceiving you while you\u2019re sitting in class,\u201d Hirko said, \u201cwhen you should be focusing on what you\u2019re supposed to be learning.\u201d<\/p>\n There are social costs, too. \u201cIf you\u2019re focused so much on pursuing the appearance ideal, it can negatively influence your relationships with friends, families and significant others,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Exercises such as role-playing, listing their own positive qualities and writing letters to their younger selves help the students get comfortable talking out difficult topics that are often ignored, said Body Project administrative co-supervisor Lillian Essaf, associate director of Residence Life.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore, they might shut down and say, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s an uncomfortable topic, I don\u2019t want to talk about that,\u201d Essaf said. \u201cThis gets them more comfortable talking about and pushing back on those ideals to try and stop perpetuating them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we talk about the hard things in a safe space, we connect,\u201d agreed Morrison. \u201cEvery time I lead a session, I leave feeling more comfortable in my own skin.\u201d<\/p>\n This year, Furman is also offering More than Muscles, a program for men. Although some of the particulars may be different, the goal for both programs is the same: pushing back against appearance ideals and promoting a positive body image.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to be involved with this organization due to how beautifully impactful it was for myself and others around me,\u201d said student leader Liza DeVine \u201923. \u201cTo see people set free from the burdens society puts on them to look and act a certain way is incredibly liberating.\u201d<\/p>\n To learn more, visit the FU Body Project Instagram<\/a> or sign up at The Body Project at Furman University<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The program aims to help set students free from the many costs of body dissatisfaction, including disordered eating and self-esteem issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":22970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-student-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}