Creating Weight Inclusive Organisations:

Help the people in your organisation to break free from concerns about their weight and the energy drain that is body dissatisfaction. People who have positive body image:

• Appreciate their bodies for what they can do rather than how they look,
• Engage in regular pleasurable activity,
• Listening to their body in relation to food and eating,
• Are more likely to maintain a stable weight (for their body type) that is often in the healthy range (2)

Through consultation with a range of people within your organization, I’ll identify key issues through a positive body image lens, bringing practical strategies for heart-felt change in four main areas:

Individuals: Through the ‘Four Pillars’ sessions: Love, Feed, Move, Embrace Your Body presentations, I will help individuals within your organisation to understand their own relationships with their bodies, how to bring in self compassion and care and integrate health-enhancement practices that support long term health & wellbeing.

Creating a supportive culture: Do conversations about weight and diets dominate your tearoom? The way we talk about our own body and other people’s bodies can keep us trapped in the cycle of poor body image, comparison and deprivation. In this session we’ll explore ‘fat talk’ and creative ways to extract ourselves from the talons of our weight loss culture, giving ourselves permission to speak with love and care about all bodies, especially our own. We’ll create a vision within your organization for ways to support empowering language around weight and celebration of all shapes and sizes.

Interactions with clients: The weight and health conversation is a common one when working with clients in the health & wellbeing sectors. The well intentioned but often stigmatizing messages of the ‘war on obesity’ can support weight bias in the most professional of health professionals! In this section we’ll discuss weight bias, how using body dissatisfaction messages to motivate healthy behaviours don’t work and ways to promote long-term health and wellbeing by focusing on celebrating body diversity and health-enhancing behaviours rather than weight; being healthy at any weight rather than thin at any cost.

Creating body positive work environments: Small changes within the physical workplace environment can go a long way in helping people of all shapes and sizes feel accepted and respected. In this part of the workshop we’ll complete a body image audit of your physical space.