Welcome to the CIHAS interview series where we speak to inspiring voices across academia and activism. Today's interview is with Dr Garcia Ashdown-Franks. Garcia is a Research Fellow at York St John University in their Institute for Health and Care Improvement, and her research centres around physical activity, body image, weight stigma and mental health. Today, I'm sharing our conversation around teen body image and embodiment during the challenging stages of puberty - you may have caught some of Garcia's words of wisdom on this in my Growing Concerns series. Garcia had so much good stuff to share that we wanted to include her insight as a full interview - here she speaks about the current and emerging research into teen body image and embodiment, some of the challenges teens might face around body image during puberty, and how we can best handle the conversations at home. Plus Garcia answers a reader question all about normalising body changes in puberty and trusting our kids to know their own bodies. Read on for more!
Laura: Hi Garcia, thanks for joining us! Can you introduce yourself to the readers and tell us a bit about what you do?
Garcia: Hi, thanks for having me! So my name is Dr Garcia Ashdown-Franks, I am a Research Fellow at York St John University in their Institute for Health and Care Improvement and my research centres around physical activity, body image, weight stigma and mental health. I also do some facilitation work with Body Happy Org, delivering workshops for students, teachers and parents around body image and creating cultures of body respect.
Today's interviewee, Dr Garcia Ashdown-Franks
Laura: When we talk about ‘good’ or ‘positive’ body image in adolescents, especially as their body is changing and they may feel a rupture in their embodiment, what do we mean by that? My assumption is that it’s not being positive about your body all the time!
Garcia: I suppose firstly by way of definition, when we talk about ‘good’ or ‘positive’ body image typically we’re referring to things like caring for our body, appreciating our body, feeling comfortable in it, and being able to accept any imperfections or unique features that our body has in comparison to others. A hallmark of positive body image is having an emphasis on appreciating our body for what it can do versus what it looks like or its appearance, so body appreciation and body functionality over appearance.
As you allude to, the idea or the notion of positive body image is all well and good in a theoretical sense, but when it comes down to it and kids are having a tough time going through puberty, positive body image can feel like something that is unattainable. Maybe in that moment it's not about being positive about your body all the time.
Another body image construct that can be useful to talk to our kids about is this idea of body neutrality, which I'm sure you're familiar with [Reader: I wrote about this in my first book!]. It’s an interesting one because it's a relatively new construct in the body image world. It's really under-researched and actually at the moment there's no way of measuring it - researchers aren't yet sure if it's conceptually different enough from other body image constructs that we already have. But, I think this idea of neutrality is still an important one to convey to our kids just because it feels a lot more attainable than positive body image in many respects.
A helpful way of thinking about it is that body neutrality can be a midway point between negative body image and positive body image, or it can be kind of a stepping stone towards positive body image. It still shares that focus on body appreciation; it has a heavy focus on body functionality and accepting and having respect for our body. Whether we frame it to our kids as body neutrality or not, I suppose the language doesn't really matter that much, it's more about conveying the importance of acceptance and respect rather than having to feel like we have to love our bodies all the time, which we know is very unrealistic, particularly during a time where kids are going through so many changes.
Laura: Do you have any advice for parents of teens for sitting in the discomfort of this with their kids, without rushing to ‘you’re beautiful’ or ‘you’re not fat’ or ‘so and so is just jealous’?
This post is free to read
Enter your email address to read this post and our library of free posts.
