Appreciate Yourself!

ASI holds Love Your Body event

By: Maeve Camplisson

Posted: 11/3/09

On Thursday October 29 during university hour, men and women alike visited the Library Plaza and participated in "Love Your Body Day." The plaza was full of booths, giveaways, and activities encouraging students to love their bodies. The ASI Women's Center put on this event for the fourth year in a row, but the National Organization for Women (NOW) started this event 12 years ago.

Jessica Castro, a Women's Center peer educator and the coordinator of "Love Your Body Day" described it as "an event about positive body image." The NOW website describes it as a day encouraging women to "fight back" against cosmetic, fashion, and diet industries which "work hard to make each of us believe that our bodies are unacceptable and need constant improvement" in order to sell their products.

The event on campus included tables by organizations from on and off campus promoting positive body image, health, and athletics. Clif Bar gave out free samples of the LUNA bar which they market towards women, and Froyo Love gave free yogurt to anyone who got a card stamped to prove he or she had checked in at every booth.

Student Health and Counseling Services representatives Cathy Nguyen, a health educator, and Shannon Starnater, an intern, talked to students about healthy habits and remind them that they have access to nutritional counselors.

One popular table at the event was one at which people could color drawings of a vagina with crayons. Melissa Rodriguez of the Women's Center explained that the coloring sheets were "for the inner child in all of us to get more familiar with their vagina and to not think of them as ugly or scary," and explained that children often learn through coloring books and worksheets.

The Women's Center had another booth selling pink shirts, which read, "Start a revolution. Stop hating your body." They also gave away buttons with various empowering messages.

The LGBTA club set up a table against domestic violence, and Jennifer Meneray, club president, explained to visitors that domestic violence can be committed by anyone and towards anyone no matter their gender, despite popular stereotypes.

The Pride Center gave away free bracelets and supplies while visitors had the opportunity to write and draw positive messages inside a traced body.