Promoting positive body image: Resources for educators

• • Use body diverse visuals

• • Remove scales

• • Avoid comments around dieting, weight, or body shape (yourself and others)

• • Schedule adequate time for eating

• • Frame physical activity as fun and social, not as a way to control weight

• • Ensure desks and chairs fit all bodies

• • Talk about all foods neutrally (e.g. no good foods, bad foods)

• • Do not connect food, eating, or activity to body size

• • Use Teach Food First for nutrition education in grades K-8

• • When teaching about health, disconnect weight from health. Instead, focus on adequate sleep, physical activity, self-compassion, self-regulation, and mindful eating

• • Avoid food logs and calorie counting

• • Encourage critical thinking skills around social media/messaging related to food/weight/shape

• • Normalize increase in weight, body fat, and appetite during growth and puberty

• • Ensure anti-bullying policies include body shape and size

• • Create policies on meal supervision roles

• • Have weight-neutral rationale for non-food reward policies

• • No calorie information on school food menus

• • Respect parents’ roles in food selection and offer support as needed

• • Work with public health staff

• • Vet guest speakers (weight-inclusive, trauma-informed)

• • Refer to appropriate supports when disordered eating/eating disorders suspected

• • Partner with Embody, Foundry, Health Authority, MCFD, and other youth service providers

Amazing Me – The Dove Self-Esteem Project and Discovery Education. Addresses media literacy, different aspects of bullying, and body confidence.

Beyond Images – Online lesson plans from Canada’s NEDIC (National Eating Disorder Information Centre).

Media Smarts – Body Image: Introduction | MediaSmarts Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy includes literary programs, resources and lesson plans with the purpose of encouraging youth to develop critical thinking skills when engaging with various forms of media

• BCTF Body inclusive library collections – Article by a teacher-librarian with suggested body-inclusive library books
• Teacher Fan Club – Elizabeth Tingle is a teacher and a producer of the Teacher Fan Club podcast. Passionate about weight-neutral health education, she is a sessional instructor at the Werklund School of Education and the lab coordinator for the Body Image Lab at the University of Calgary.
• Teach Food First – A 2022 Canadian toolkit with lesson plans for K-8 teachers.

• Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre – A website by PHSA (Provincial Health Services Authority) with resources for school professionals, parents, youth, and health professionals to support wellbeing.
• Body Image and Eating from Foundry BC – Foundry BC’s web pages for youth 12-24 years, on body image and eating. Includes a body image and eating self-check for youth.
• Looking Glass Foundation – Looking Glass Foundation provides programs, services, and resources to support community members with disordered eating and eating disorders.
• Four-page resource developed for schools to address weight stigma in schools from Ontario Dietitians in Public Health (2020).
• Weight Bias and Weight Stigma in Schools – Interior Health BC resource for schools to inform staff on weight bias and stigma and provide resources to create a weight-inclusive school environment (2022).