Body Happy Kids and Teens, with Molly Forbes @bodyhappyorg

What a joy to have Molly Forbes on the pod!

Molly Forbes is an author, campaigner, and journalist. Her first book, Body Happy Kids (for adults), was published by Vermilion in 2021, followed by Every Body (for readers 9+) in 2024, which won Highly Commended in the Health & Wellbeing category of the Teach Primary Awards. That same year, Molly was named one of the winners of The Fair Education Alliance Innovation Awards, supporting the development of the Body Happy Schools programme. An experienced broadcaster and public speaker, Molly has appeared on BBC Breakfast, Woman’s Hour, This Morning, Radio 1’s Newsbeat, Channel 4’s Steph’s Packed Lunch, and Heart Breakfast, discussing children’s body image, mental health, and parenting. As the founder and Executive Director of Body Happy Org, she oversees operations and strategic direction. Molly is also an active workshop facilitator, delivering sessions in schools and corporate training for brands promoting positive body esteem.

In our conversation we talked about Molly’s passion for making body image more than just a topic in PSHE (Personal Social Health Education) lessons and how if body image gets neglected as a key ingredient to children’s well-being, the repercussions can be immense. 

We hope you find the episode inspiring to find out more about Molly's work and that it helps you to call out weight stigma, body shaming and inappropriate teaching tools at your child's school (or at your place of work, in particular if you work with children and young people!)

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.

AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

Transcript

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Christine Chessman: Molly welcome to the podcast. How are you.

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Body Happy Org: I'm really well, thank you. How are you?

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Christine Chessman: Yes, not too bad. What about you, Ella?

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Ela Law: Yeah, I'm all right. I feel like my brain at the moment is like wading through treacle. I find it sometimes a little. So if if in this conversation I could go completely silent, or took even more nonsense than usual, then that's because my brain is very foggy today. But yeah, other than that. I'm brilliant.

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Christine Chessman: Is that your perimenopause.

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Ela Law: Oh, it must be! Yes.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law: Me on that! Blame me.

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Christine Chessman: We're not on that.

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: So, Molly, we are so so excited that you were able to join us today. And we want to just basically get straight in, get stuck right in.

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Christine Chessman: Ask you to share a little bit about what brought you to the work that you are currently doing, how you find your passion for it, and how it all started, really.

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Body Happy Org: Okay, yeah, sure. Well, thank you so much for having me. 1st of all, and I guess my story is probably really similar to lots of people's in that I'm a mum.

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Body Happy Org: I've got 2 daughters, and I also, I'm a human being with a body living in a culture that is quite appearance obsessed.

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Body Happy Org: and so I have my own baggage with that, like most people do, I am 41 now. So I grew up in the in the nineties, eighties and nineties.

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Body Happy Org: and when I was a teenager in the in the nineties, it was all about you know, Kate Moss and

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Body Happy Org: yeah, the kind of like magazines. And yeah, there were. Every every era has its own beauty ideal, doesn't it? And I think

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Body Happy Org: I when I became a mum. I just felt quite strongly that I didn't want to.

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Body Happy Org: I didn't want my daughters to ever have to feel like the way that they looked was the most important thing about them, or or even

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Body Happy Org: relevant.

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Body Happy Org: But I think also

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Body Happy Org: I was also a victim of diet culture, and feeling like I should snap.

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Body Happy Org: You know that whole kind of snap back. Get your body back kind of thing. And I think that. I went on, my own sort of

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Body Happy Org: had my own experiences of

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Body Happy Org: trying to change the shape of my body after I became a mum.

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Body Happy Org: But really it wasn't about my body. It was more about trying to feel a sense of control

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Body Happy Org: and trying to kind of get a sense of feel like, you know, in

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Body Happy Org: in a way trying to get my pre. My pre baby life back.

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Body Happy Org: you know. So, in a way of trying to get my pre baby body back, it was really trying to

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Body Happy Org: grapple with that identity change

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Body Happy Org: and I didn't, really.

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Body Happy Org: I wasn't aware that that's what was going on at the time, but with hindsight I can look back on that, and I can recognize that. That's probably what was happening. And I think it was a moment

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Body Happy Org: where I was doing. I was doing like a

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Body Happy Org: quote, unquote, clean eating thing, and I was like weighing different food, and my daughter asked me why I was weighing spinach, and I didn't have a good answer for her, because the. I didn't want to tell her the reason why, because I didn't want her to emulate that. And that was a bit of a

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Body Happy Org: reminder of what my values were, and what I was, how I was wanting to raise my children, and how I'd kind of strayed from that a bit.

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Body Happy Org: At the same time as all of this. I'm a journalist by trade. So I was working in the media. I worked as a radio presenter for many years, and then as a journalist and a producer. And then I was writing at this point for, like parenting magazines and celebrity magazines.

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Body Happy Org: and I think that

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Body Happy Org: I I didn't realize how

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Body Happy Org: deeply entrenched in that culture I was. And so I have a unique perspective in that. I've been on both sides of it.

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Body Happy Org: as you know

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Body Happy Org: many people have, and I think that I so then I started being really interested in body image as a concept.

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Body Happy Org: and how the way that we think and feel about our bodies really impacts, how we show up in the world, how we treat our bodies

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Body Happy Org: and the judgments that we make of other people.

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Body Happy Org: And I started getting really interested in the kind of cultural side of it. So I think, being a journalist

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Body Happy Org: and being really interested in culture and society

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Body Happy Org: and I've always had been interested in that kind of stuff and that kind of lens. I was really kind of coming at it from. Well, all these messages around us

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Body Happy Org: at odds with the psychologists are telling us, do this to feel good about your body. But how can you do that in the world when the world is telling you all these other things.

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Body Happy Org: And I became really interested in how these messages were specifically targeting children.

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Body Happy Org: because I became aware that as I was going through this process of trying to make myself feel better and unlearn some of these ideas and habits, and actually come at it from a much more like from like a social

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Body Happy Org: justice kind of lens. I started to become aware of how many messages in the world were at odds, were undermining that with my own children

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Body Happy Org: I started. That was when I started campaigning on things like

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Body Happy Org: making like tighter regulations around the way that diet products are advertised around children. And then I started.

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Body Happy Org: We, as part of that, did like round tables, started doing training with teachers. And it was after that that I then founded the body happy organization. And we're a social impact organization. We work with schools and families. And our thing is about creating classroom cultures of body respect.

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Body Happy Org: And there are kind of 4 key foundations for that. And yeah, we're we're

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Body Happy Org: we're still developing, like, you know. Well, we've we've got lots of aspects that we already do. But we're now developing

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Body Happy Org: the Uk's 1st Body Happy Schools program, which is the Uk's 1st whole school program

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Body Happy Org: that, like takes a full 360 degree approach to this that doesn't just make positive body image a thing that students have to do themselves. I think that's quite unfair if we make it all about resilience building, and we don't do anything about the environment and the culture that they're in. We're also looking at that bigger environmental cultural piece.

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Ela Law: Wow, that is, that is so amazing. So in terms of the organization, how many people are working with you? Because that's a massive, massive task, isn't it?

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Ela Law: All of the schools is probably impossible at this stage. But so how? Tell me a little bit more about how that works, and how that.

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Body Happy Org: We've got a board. So it's I'm the founder in the executive director, and then we've got a board of. There's 3 other people who are non executive directors on the board.

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Body Happy Org: we've got a Gp. A teacher and a project manager on the board, and then we've also got a network of freelance facilitators who have a range of different backgrounds. So in our team of facilitators, we've got another Gp, we've got a body image researcher.

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Body Happy Org: We've got teachers. We've got mental health practitioners.

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Body Happy Org: a whole range of. We've got a trained workshop facilitators who that's their day job. They go in and do workshops on other things like sexual violence. Consent that you know all these other kind of social

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Body Happy Org: topics.

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Body Happy Org: And what we're doing at the moment is we're working with the Fair Education Alliance. So the Fair Education Alliance is a coalition of 300 member organizations.

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Body Happy Org: They're a charity, and

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Body Happy Org: they are their vision is, is essentially a world where children they're. They're not limited by their financial background, and everyone has the same

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Body Happy Org: access to good education. So they've committed to educational equality, and as part of that they run 2 awards every year.

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Body Happy Org: And they give a significant amount of funding to 6 winners. Well, this year it was 6 winners. I don't know what it will be next year. Who all have an idea

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Body Happy Org: that they will help develop that idea and fund the salary for the person leading that idea for 6 months, and in September we were announced as one of 6 winners out of 90 applicants. Thank you. And so they are helping us develop our whole school program. And the idea is that when we finished this incubator program with the Fair Education Alliance

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Body Happy Org: next September we will have this whole school program will have been developed, piloted, tested.

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Body Happy Org: and we will have, you know, a really solid

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Body Happy Org: you know, modeling around that

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Body Happy Org: but we also have. We're very lucky in that. We have good academic links. So we also have links with the University of Lincoln. Dr. Camilla Irvin, who is.

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Ela Law: She's brilliant. I love her. She's so good.

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Body Happy Org: Yeah. So she, she led a pilot study impact study last year. And we are currently awaiting to find out if we've had. You know success with funding. But we want to. That was like the 1st of hopefully many projects where we will really look at how we can, and that that academic research will hopefully then help to inform wider policy around these issues.

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Ela Law: wow, that is so so needed. It's really interesting. Because I think those programs they're so needed as an antidote to all of this National child measurement program and all of that stuff that's going on. Also, I used to. Actually, in my previous life I worked for the healthy schools team. So it was a very different narrative that we used then. But it was one of those things that

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Ela Law: felt very

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Ela Law: short term, because it was always dependent on on funding. So how do you foresee this working? Are you just basing it on volunteers going into schools, or is this something that will be funded.

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Body Happy Org: Yeah, we don't. We don't have. We don't work with volunteer. All of our facilitators are paid.

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Ela Law: Oh, that's great!

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Body Happy Org: And we have, and we get loads of people who want to volunteer for us. But we don't really take on.

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Ela Law: Right.

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Body Happy Org: We don't have the capacity at the moment to have lots of volunteers. Yeah, it schools will pay for it, so it will either come from school budgets.

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Body Happy Org: it will be subsidized for schools that have 50% or more pupil premium. So if they have 50% or more pupils who are getting free school meals, or who are looked after children in care.

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Body Happy Org: Then we will subsidise the program. But we're also seeking funding so that some schools will get it fully funded.

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Body Happy Org: It might be that some councils have budget and can commission the program or aspects of the program. So at the moment we have been commissioned

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Body Happy Org: to do small bits of training. So we just recently delivered some training, for we reached 41 secondary schools and 9 primary schools. And that was organized by a local council. Who is they basically paid for 8 workshops

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Body Happy Org: that were delivered online and a delegate from every school in their area could join.

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Body Happy Org: But we didn't just do that. We, that package included training for secondary schools and primary schools. But we also did a session for school nurses. We also did a session for youth leaders, and we also did a session for the early years teams. So

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Body Happy Org: we are very much looking at. You know, really, the schools is the biggest

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Body Happy Org: impact that we can have, because we can, we can reach most children there. But we're also looking at the other services. We just recently did some training for a public health team

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Body Happy Org: and also the school's programme will include, like a resources and

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Body Happy Org: support for parents and caregivers as well. But yeah, it it will be

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Body Happy Org: essentially.

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Body Happy Org: we're a social enterprise. Yeah. So the way that a social enterprise model should work. If it's working well, is that you reinvest 50% of your profits back into the community that you're serving.

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Body Happy Org: Now, we're not

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Body Happy Org: profitable financially stable at the moment with, we're still new and actually social enterprise. Sec. 3rd sect. Everyone. No one has any money, education.

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Body Happy Org: no money. Health has no money like social impact. Organizations, like budgets, are always tight everywhere.

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Body Happy Org: but it's you know it will be schools will can pay for it. Schools do have some budget depends how they prioritize it. They can use some of their P. Primary schools can use some of their P and sport budget because of the links with sport engagement. We know that when children feel better about their bodies they're more likely to engage with sport and extracurricular activities. And there's a strong evidence base behind that?

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Body Happy Org: yeah. So we

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Body Happy Org: and what we we're this model is currently in development. So what we're looking at developing is like an in person

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Body Happy Org: version, where we have a facilitator who goes in to their local schools and works really closely with the schools, and then having, like a more of a virtual

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Body Happy Org: distance version that schools like a package. And we don't know we don't know what that's gonna look like. Yeah, we we've only just started working on it. So.

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Christine Chessman: I mean, I think the schools are where kids spend so much of their time, and it can be a massive influence in terms of their experience of moving their body, of sport, of PE and of food in terms of nutritional science, how they're taught

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Christine Chessman: the whole ship behind, and I think

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Christine Chessman: So in my experience it's really getting the school to take it seriously has been difficult. And you know, obviously, schools have really tight budgets. But there is a priority, you know, there's a level of priority that they're maybe not giving to body image and kids and promoting body image in school because of the belief around weight and children's weight and health, etc.

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Christine Chessman: and and I think that's certainly my experience with. I met with the heads of my daughter's school recently I told you this story, Molly, but my daughter had an enrichment day for science, so not for any other subject where the kids where they brought along skills.

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Christine Chessman: and they offered the kids the opportunity to come to the front of the class, weigh themselves and calculate their Bmis. And these are 14 year old kids.

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Christine Chessman: and in the class that they did this 3 of the kids had eating disorders.

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Christine Chessman: None of the parents were informed previously, and my daughter, who was in recovery from an eating disorder, had been blind, weighed for 2 and a half years, and that was the 1st day she found out her weight.

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Christine Chessman: so, as you can imagine, I was outraged

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Christine Chessman: and had a meeting with the school. The school were very apologetic, incredibly apologetic, and said, we will make sure this doesn't happen again. The teachers have been spoken to, and then I presented all of the information you had given to me so kindly. And it's so accessible, Molly, you can go in at so many different levels.

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Christine Chessman: and

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Christine Chessman: they just wouldn't entertain a conversation. It was like, Well, we have so many other priorities that it's.

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Christine Chessman: and they said, We will speak to our staff, we will, and I'm like, I don't think that's enough.

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Christine Chessman: And you know. And I said, I'm going to keep in contact with you. And they said, Please do that, and it's I guess it's just about.

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Christine Chessman: I don't know how to get the school to understand how important this is

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Christine Chessman: for the culture, for the community, for the it's. It's a bit of a head bang against the wall, and it makes me quite upset. I'm getting very red under my makeup.

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Ela Law: Okay.

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Body Happy Org: Very, very hard, and I would say, Don't give up, because even that conversation that you had will have had an impact in terms of.

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Body Happy Org: So there are a few things. There are many challenges and barriers to this work. I think that most people who work in the space of

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Body Happy Org: health, fitness, body image, including academics and researchers and people everyone has this idea of. Oh, they just need to do this. They saw this is a really lovely and nice initiative, and we'll get into the schools and do this.

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Body Happy Org: And I think that that's it's very important that within this work, if you're wanting to work with schools.

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Body Happy Org: You have to have people within your team who actually work in schools and know what schools need and are actually part of that educational landscape.

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Body Happy Org: Because,

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Body Happy Org: actually, the education system is broken. It's a mess. Just we've got a very fractured Nhs and health system.

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Body Happy Org: Actually, the education system is is

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Body Happy Org: in crisis as well, you know. That's why organizations like the Fair Education Alliance exist

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Body Happy Org: and

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Body Happy Org: teachers have an incredibly difficult job. So I'm married to a teacher, and I'm the daughter of 2 retired teachers. My dad was an assistant head. My mum was a drama teacher and a head of year.

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Body Happy Org: My auntie was a deputy head. I'm literally the only person in my family who's who's not a teacher. My sister is a doctor, so like within our family. We've got people who've worked in media education and health. These like

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Body Happy Org: societal kind of pillars. And one thing that I feel really passionately about is that currently we've got all these different parts of society that are very separate.

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Body Happy Org: So education

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Body Happy Org: kind of to massively kind of generalize education will often see body image as a health issue.

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Body Happy Org: And so it should be health that are putting the money into this, or you know it's not. It's not any of our concern.

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Body Happy Org: Health will see something like this as an education issue, because actually, it's happening in schools.

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Body Happy Org: It's not about an intervention for children who are struggling. It's about prevention and culture change.

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Body Happy Org: And actually, it's an education and a health issue. And it's also a media issue. Yeah.

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Ela Law: Okay.

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Body Happy Org: And I think that it's really important to recognize that teachers their workload is is they've got, you know, they're dealing with a saturated workload. Their cognitive load is massive. Every school has different priorities, and every school has a different senior leadership team. And so.

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Body Happy Org: and also, like the the structure of education. We have lots of different types of schools. We've got some schools that are academies that are part of trust. We've got some schools that are run by like the the local authority. We've got independent schools. We've got lots of different types of schools. And so what we are building with this program is a model like essentially 2 versions of it.

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Body Happy Org: When the schools are ready to engage that it's there for them to engage with, and what I would say is, we work with a lot of schools already, and we already. And we've had no issues finding schools to pilot the program.

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Christine Chessman: To.

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Body Happy Org: We've had to turn people away. And

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Body Happy Org: so actually.

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Body Happy Org: we know that the demand is there. But it really depends on the school.

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Body Happy Org: and it depends on the leaders within the school. It depends on what the challenges within that school are

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Body Happy Org: a couple of things that are

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Body Happy Org: useful to know. I think, for anyone who has a child in a school or who is part of the education system is that body image is an educational equality issue. The way that children think and feel about their bodies

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Body Happy Org: directly impacts

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Body Happy Org: how they treat their own bodies as well as how they treat other people whose bodies don't function or look like them as well as how they show up in class as well as if they show up in class. Body image is an academic attainment issue. It's an attendance issue. It's a safeguarding issue, as you've just shown. Christine.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Body Happy Org: And it. And it's a well-being issue.

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Body Happy Org: The problem is is that at the moment the education system tends to see body image as a wellbeing issue and a well-being only issue. And so it's a psh thing, you know. We just do one lesson in the year on Body image. And then that tick box.

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Body Happy Org: Actually, when they look, when they understand that body image impacts every aspect of a student's lives

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Body Happy Org: and actually can impact their exam results. And it can impact whether they show up for school, and it can impact whether they take part in PE. When schools understand this

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Body Happy Org: and they realize that actually, it's kind of a core foundation and doing all of the things that that we like having some awareness and training on it. It's not even about implementing

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Body Happy Org: an extra program of like having to build in loads of stuff. It's about having awareness. So when you're doing that

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Body Happy Org: that day of science.

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Body Happy Org: Or not. Your staff know not to plan an activity like that because they have training, they've done. They've done a 2 h workshop that gives them some insight into this subject.

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Body Happy Org: teacher workload is a massive problem, which is why the program that we're developing is like the the kind of the in person. One is all 3rd party delivery, and the other version. The online version will be like videos and things. So there'll still be an element of that 3rd party delivery. We're not asking teachers to design plan lessons. We've got these. It's off the shelf. We've got it. There you go go and use it. But yeah, there is. I think, that

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Body Happy Org: a court, before any of that

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Body Happy Org: change can happen.

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Body Happy Org: the kind of

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Body Happy Org: ultimate foundation for that change to happen resides on

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Body Happy Org: 2 things, and that's a the school being willing to engage with the subject

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Body Happy Org: and prioritising the subject.

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Body Happy Org: And then the other thing is the school like actually seeing it as an important thing and messaging that that messaging coming from the staff. So you really need to have the senior leadership team on board, and that can take a while.

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Body Happy Org: and it won't necessarily happen overnight, because they will be. They've got loads of things that they're doing, you know.

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Christine Chessman: I know. Yeah.

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Body Happy Org: But it's

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Body Happy Org: I can totally see as a parent. It's very frustrating when you're raising things. And you're you're

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Body Happy Org: you want the schools to kind of, you know. Embrace these. There are schools that are, but it's not.

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Christine Chessman: Well, it's more about that actual causing harm. So it's, you know, as schools can be an environment where, you know, obviously, there's so many different things kids are coming up against in school, as you say. My mum's a teacher. Teachers have an incredibly hard job on their hands, but it's to send your child to school. You don't expect them to come home

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Christine Chessman: and have. It's literally as it's a safeguarding issue. And that was that was causing harm. That Enrichment Day caused harm to a number of kids, and that's why it for me needs to be taken

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Christine Chessman: a notch higher and a step further. And it's really helpful just to hear what you've said just to reinforce that, and I will be taking it back to the head, who is absolutely lovely and open, but just.

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Christine Chessman: I think, needs a little bit of gentle encouragement.

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Ela Law: Think it's really difficult, because I think what Mollywood you said right at the beginning is that there's the media, the education system, the Nhs.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law: Unless they all work.

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Christine Chessman: Together.

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Ela Law: Sing from the same song sheet. It's going to be so difficult because the school can do whatever they want, and the best work around body image.

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Ela Law: But if, say the media, then still.

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Ela Law: you know, formats this weight centric narrative all over us, it's really difficult to take a step back from that, and if the Nhs then sends in school nurses that haven't got a clue about body image, and and you know, weight neutrality, you have to fight it from all angles, so to speak, right, you have to kind of come to it from

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Ela Law: from top down as well as bottom up. I feel otherwise it's just not going to be, or it's going to take a lot longer, even if it's it's amazing stuff. But I think we need to sort of make sure that all of the different aspects are covered. And it sounds like your program.

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Ela Law: Does that because of the stakeholders that you've got involved.

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Body Happy Org: Yeah. And the fact that we do. You know, we we've done training for school nurses.

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Body Happy Org: Great. And we've done training for public health teams.

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Ela Law: Exactly.

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Body Happy Org: You know, I say, that

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Body Happy Org: this is lifelong work. Unfortunately, culture change doesn't happen overnight. It's not. And it's frustrating. When you're working at like the front end of it, because you want the check. Really.

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Body Happy Org: we need to not have to exist as an organization. If we're 6, if we're truly successful with our mission, we won't need to exist. I also have to accept that we are one

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Body Happy Org: piece. We're one cog in a much bigger machine.

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Body Happy Org: And so

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Body Happy Org: the likelihood that we will need to exist, you know. Whether we can still continue to exist as long as we're needed is is another story. But the the fact. I anticipate that the demand and the requirement and the need for us to exist

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Body Happy Org: is not going to go away anytime soon.

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Body Happy Org: And I think that.

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Body Happy Org: there's something something really useful that I

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Body Happy Org: heard recently we in our training with the Fair Education Alliance. We were talking all of the other winners. We all are social impact organizations. So we're all trying to tackle the root causes of some really big issues.

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Body Happy Org: I'm looking at Body image one of my colleagues is looking at child poverty. Someone else in the team is looking at diversity within the medical system like these are like big issues.

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Body Happy Org: but we are all just one organization. So it's looking at. Okay, what? What are the root causes of some of these issues? So thinking about? Okay, this is happening. Well, why is that asking? There's an activity called the 5 Whys, which we did, which is great. And you just literally come to like the bottom kind of the core kind of root cause thing.

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Body Happy Org: and that that thinking about it in that way is really useful because it can help you see where your thing fits into the bigger picture.

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Body Happy Org: and it can also help you ensure that you're not just dealing with the symptoms. You're actually trying to tackle some of the root causes, and I think there are some brilliant body image initiatives that are happening

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Body Happy Org: around the world, and they're really great. But I do still think that we are stuck in this symptom kind of

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Body Happy Org: period where we're looking at symptoms. We're trying to put sticking plasters on things we're focusing on like building resilience, for example, rather than actually, you know. Yes.

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Body Happy Org: the media. Yeah. Yeah. Great journalists should have training on this as well. That isn't what we're doing that isn't ask. That isn't asked field of interest. But actually, hopefully, the more that we talk about these issues, and the more that I'm invited onto like Telly and radio to talk about these issues. That's also making an impact as well.

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Ela Law: Because.

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Body Happy Org: Amazing journalists who supported our work and written about us.

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Body Happy Org: But it's yeah. It's it's it's incremental kind of things. And I think that

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Body Happy Org: what we're trying to do is that kind of bigger culture change piece and get to some of those root causes. So okay, we might not be able to stop the Daily Mail from having their sidebar of shame and commenting on celebrities, bodies. But we can

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Body Happy Org: ensure that those messages around health, and what constitutes a good and bad body aren't reinforced and perpetuated in the school environment.

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Body Happy Org: Yeah, we can ensure that children are given the skills and tools and help develop these skills to actually think critically about some of these messages.

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Body Happy Org: and we can have conversations with parents and caregivers about how we can affirm some of these messages in the home environment as well.

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Body Happy Org: And we can have conversations with public health teams around. Okay, how can we promote you know, how can we do health promotion in a way that isn't perpetuating weight stigma.

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Body Happy Org: These are where we've got, you know, conversations with amazing colleagues in public health teams. I want to do a big shout out for Doncaster Council, because they're doing some really great work in terms of like weight, Sigma, reduction and positive body image, and really kind of thinking about how to look after the people's health and promote health without making their health worse, you know.

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Body Happy Org: And I. I would say that this work is happening. But

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Body Happy Org: yeah, it's not gonna change overnight. And I think that it's quite.

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Body Happy Org: It's quite

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Body Happy Org: easy in the social justice space, particularly online. There's a lot of people online. There's a lot of people sharing

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Body Happy Org: online courses and building Instagram accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers. And you know, building a profile and a public profile and writing books, and I reckon I'm part of that noise. I recognize that.

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Body Happy Org: But I think that we have to be really careful that we don't try and distill these really complicated issues into like a quick. Oh, well, this is the fix

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Body Happy Org: without having early recognition of the wider picture.

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Body Happy Org: Yeah, because actually, all the all that's not going to make it. That's not going to make change. We're not going to get change that way we have to meet people where they're at. We have to look at these systems and think, how can we work, you know, for me, anyway, for the work that I'm doing. I'm wanting to go into schools. I have to be aware of how the education system works. I have to be aware of how schools work, you know. So and I have to be building something that allows.

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Body Happy Org: You know that that is able to work within

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Body Happy Org: the challenges and limitations and barriers of that wider system.

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Body Happy Org: And it's really difficult. It's so difficult. I get very frustrated when people are like, well, you should just do this. I'm like.

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Ela Law: Awesome.

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Body Happy Org: It was that simple we'd all be doing it, just like, you know, with diets. Oh, just do this. XYZ. You know

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Body Happy Org: it's the same thing. There is no quick fix formula to fix society.

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Christine Chessman: You're just sort of gone. I don't know if this is a tangent, but I'm just looking at that book behind you, Molly, and now that is written, this is your new book, everybody which is written for children. 9 plus. Is that right? And you know, I know from the work that I'm doing. I know that there's 2 peaks. They say there's 2 peaks of body dissatisfaction which is puberty and perimenopause

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Christine Chessman: menopause.

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Ela Law: Yay!

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Christine Chessman: And my daughter started struggling with her body image

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Christine Chessman: prepubescent. So just as she was about to hit puberty, and I have seen so many of her friends struggling in exactly the same way. And I'm wondering, was 9. Plus. Is that really targeted at those kids? The prepubescent kids were, or what? Why, 9 plus. I'm just really interested in that number.

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Body Happy Org: So when I first.st So my 1st book was for parents and caregivers and teachers, and anyone who works with children, and it was about how we can create. You know how we can raise children to feel good about themselves and other people.

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Body Happy Org: And I knew that I wanted to write a book where I was speaking directly to children and young people, and initially I thought it would be a book for teenagers for that next kind of bracket up.

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Body Happy Org: But the more I started researching it and started speaking to like

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Body Happy Org: and

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Body Happy Org: schools

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Body Happy Org: and our community of you know, teachers and schools that we work with, and then also, like pulling parents, and things became really apparent that there was a gap there, and there was something.

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Body Happy Org: There are books that are really great picture books that are about celebration, body diversity and thinking about, you know some of these, you know, issues like weight, stigma, etc.

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Body Happy Org: And there are some books that are great, kind of more like educational resources, almost like activity books or like handbooks very interactive. You write in them. You have activities and things. But there wasn't a book that was distilling all of the stuff around, not just

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Body Happy Org: body image, but also you know how our bodies change and puberty. There's a whole chapter on puberty. So there's like science stuff in there, but also, like the the social stuff, the you know the history of

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Body Happy Org: fat activism. What weight neutrality is. You know, thinking about social media, all of these things. There was nothing that was kind of bringing all of that stuff together. And that was the book. I felt that

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Body Happy Org: would have been useful for me. So my daughters are 14 and 10, and it was a book that I felt would have been useful to help me talk. You know I wanted the kind of conversations that we're having wanted to kind of create a resource for

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Body Happy Org: either parents could use with their children, but also children could read themselves and just dip in and out of. And I wanted it to be funny. I wanted it to be

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Body Happy Org: joyful and not like a big boring lecture, because no one wants that especially not when you're competing with Tiktok and Youtube for their attention.

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Body Happy Org: yeah. And I think that that age group, that middle grade kind of age group, is often a bit of a forgotten one. And I know that from the the workshops that we do.

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Body Happy Org: If we're invited in just to deliver like one or 2 workshops, then it's often year 5 and 6 that that we're invited in to talk to. And I think all year 7 and 8. And I think that it's because that

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Body Happy Org: that age group is, yeah, it's a pivot. Their bodies are changing and.

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Christine Chessman: These are changing. Yeah, I really watched. I I saw it through the lens of my daughter through her eyes. So she she was a kid that would wear what she wanted, and had that internal

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Christine Chessman: lens, internal locus of evaluation, or whatever you want to say. But she just did what she wanted to do, and she was confident she went out there, wore what she wanted, broke the school rules left, right and center, and I saw this gradual switch where she started to see how other people looked at her. So it wasn't how she looked at the world it was, how the world looked at her.

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Christine Chessman: And it just is exactly that between those years between kind of 9 and 12

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Christine Chessman: were those pivotal years that I just observed that change. And obviously Covid didn't help but and I think that is that's why I was so intrigued that it was 9 plus because I think teenage years. I think the the root of it all is there. By the time they're teenagers

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Christine Chessman: it's I mean, you can still absolutely do amazing work with teenagers. But if you can somehow get these ideas buzzing around their heads in year 5 and 6.

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Body Happy Org: I mean.

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Christine Chessman: That's.

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Body Happy Org: And before, like

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Body Happy Org: reception and and key stage one. And we've done training for early years, you know. Obviously, with that age group we're not talking about like beauty ideals and media literacy. We're not using that kind of language. But we're we're doing activities that really focus on like body appreciation and celebrating our differences.

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Body Happy Org: And you know, anti-bullying work around. You know actually what and body boundaries, you know, consent, like those kind of conversations

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Body Happy Org: you can have. You can use story. But we use storybooks for those kind of age groups to to and and creative activities. And you can start having those conversations embedding those foundations right from when they're really little. If you think about

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Body Happy Org: peppa pig is an example that I often use, that we often use in our workshop. So children learn

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Body Happy Org: from a really young age that there are good bodies and bad bodies.

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Body Happy Org: and they learn that you can tell something about a person's character and personality based on the way they look, and they learn that they don't want to play with someone because of the way they look like really from these are like toddlers and 3 year olds, that

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Body Happy Org: that the research shows that 3 year olds can display antifat bias. And they are so actually, if we can get in early and remove some of those messages, but also start to embed the foundations of thinking critically about some of these messages and kind of things that can mitigate some of these messages.

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Body Happy Org: Then all the better, we're setting that. That doesn't mean that they're never going to struggle, because, just like our bodies, change, our body image changes. And so what I would say, you know, if a child is struggling now, it doesn't mean that they're always going to struggle, and there are so many. There are so many different reasons why someone could struggle with body image. And I think that one of the big things that we're

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Body Happy Org: one of the big kind of outcomes that we outcome goals that we're working towards is helping schools. Also be able to identify students who are struggling so that they get that support earlier, because we know that that early intervention is really critical. And we know that when

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Body Happy Org: we know that it's often not happening because things like it seems so normal. It's just so seen as so normal that actually, oh, of course, children feel bad about their bodies. That's normal, isn't it? You know that. And actually it because it's so normalized because it's so common, it's become normalized. And so there are children who.

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Body Happy Org: you know we we don't. We don't do counseling and schools like, unless they have a trained counselor in their school. It's not the teacher's job to counsel students because it's not in their

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Body Happy Org: area of expertise. They shouldn't be doing that. But what they can be doing is identifying if they think that there's an issue having those conversations with parents and signposting to where to where the support can be had. And hopefully, if those children get that support early enough.

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Body Happy Org: It will help

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Body Happy Org: in some cases stop it from becoming

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Body Happy Org: a bigger problem. Not all the time, because, particularly with eating disorders, they are so complicated. And they're so complex. Yeah, but in some cases.

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Body Happy Org: that early intervention, the evidence shows early intervention can really

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Body Happy Org: help. Unfortunately, we're still in a period where we're like putting out the fires.

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Ela Law: I won't.

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Body Happy Org: To kind of focus on stopping those fires from starting. In the 1st place.

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Ela Law: I love that focus on prevention rather than you know trying to. As you said, putting out fires. I think that's that's so. Not what our society does. Our society just wants a fix for something that's broken, but it does. It's not looking at the slightly less sexy. Or what can we do to let that fire, you know, burn in the 1st place. So I think I really love that you

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Ela Law: have really thought through all of that, and sort of looked at. Where can we start? What's the what's the seedling we can put in that can then germinate and grow? And and actually, I suppose that is in essence what may bring about a cultural change? Right? It's the prevention and the, you know, putting those those

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Ela Law: things into place before something bad can happen.

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Body Happy Org: And also

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Body Happy Org: the really like unsexy boring stuff, like business modeling like, is this a scalable solution.

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Body Happy Org: this a solution? You might have a really great idea. But is this a solution that

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Body Happy Org: can be scaled to reach lots of children? You know. How? What does that look like? How does that work. And this is.

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Body Happy Org: yeah. All of that has to be part of those considerations are equally as important as your problem research and thinking about, like your theory of change and thinking about your program design. Lots of people have really great ideas. But if they haven't also thought about that stuff.

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Body Happy Org: Pouring nuts and bolts

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Body Happy Org: really gonna make much impact.

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Ela Law: No.

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Christine Chessman: Molly, before we let you go, because we could keep here all day. It's already like way past what we were. I would love to know, sort of in terms of how we can affect change at home. I often say to clients that

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Christine Chessman: that to help your kids, body image. It's really important to work on your own, and that is not to shame anybody who has brought their kids up in a way that no sugar, etc. Etc. Or their kids have seen them dieting, etc. Because my kids certainly had throughout the 1st 6 to 7 years of their life I was not in a good place in terms of food, and my body image.

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Christine Chessman: and I kind of similarly to you. There was a moment where I asked my daughter something about my body. And then I went, hold on this. It's no, this is not okay. And I knew I needed to sort my shit out. Excuse me for swearing in order to help them.

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Christine Chessman: How would you suggest parents, would you say that would be what you'd recommend to parents in terms of that home environment.

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Body Happy Org: Yeah, I mean that

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Body Happy Org: the home that's a whole. That's a whole.

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Christine Chessman: I know that's a whole nother podcast.

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Ela Law: Come back!

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Body Happy Org: Kind of environment is obviously really important. And one thing that, again, that I say to schools.

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Body Happy Org: sometimes a barrier to engaging with this conversation is that it's not

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Body Happy Org: health. See it as an education issue education, see it as a health issue schools, see it as a home issue.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Body Happy Org: Everyone's trying to pass the buck. And actually, when we look at it in that way, we're negating all of ourselves of any

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Body Happy Org: agency and

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Body Happy Org: authority, and you know any kind of it's such a disempowering way of looking at the issue. All of us, if we, if we know children, whether we work with children, know a child, have a child are in contact with a child. A young person are a member of this society, which is

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Body Happy Org: lots and lots of children young people live in. We all have a responsibility, and that includes thinking about the home environment. So one thing that I always say, and I think that I think it's a good and a bad. It's good that more and more of us are talking about this subject particularly online. I think that's a good thing, because we're becoming more and more aware of terms like diet culture and appearance, ideals and body positivity like it's it.

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Body Happy Org: There is a more kind of mainstream awareness of these conversations.

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Body Happy Org: However.

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Body Happy Org: I think that we need to be really careful not to a make this like a mum problem. So you know.

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Christine Chessman: That's what. Yeah.

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Body Happy Org: That it's the mum's responsibility. Just wear the bikini on holiday, and if you don't wear the bikini on holiday, your children are going to feel terrible about their own bodies.

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Body Happy Org: You don't have to wear the bikini if you don't wear a bikini on holiday. Your children aren't gonna grow up with bad body image necessarily like it's not.

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Body Happy Org: But there is evidence to show that actually, when we role model positive behaviours and.

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Body Happy Org: positively speaking, about bodies, and even just not speaking the negative stuff. If we can just keep that to ourselves, that that can actually be a really powerful have a really powerful impact on our own children's body image. So you know, the evidence shows that.

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Body Happy Org: However, I also think it's really important to recognize that we're all products of the culture that we've grown up in, and that we're living in

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Body Happy Org: and

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Body Happy Org: it's not there shouldn't be any shame associated with this, and it's not something that you can unlearn overnight. So if there are people who are only just coming to the conversation, and they've got 1415, 1625 year olds. And they're like, Oh, well, it's too late. Oh, I've done the damage. Not necessarily.

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Body Happy Org: Actually. It can also be really empowering, particularly if you've got older children to bring them in, you know. Say.

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Body Happy Org: I haven't always. I'm learning about this stuff and haven't always got it right, and I'm trying to not just make myself feel better. But I'm also realizing as I'm going through this journey, that I've probably

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Body Happy Org: made mistakes in how I've approached this stuff with you as a parent, and I'm not saying that that's necessarily my fault, because it's so normal. But

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Body Happy Org: I was wondering, like, maybe we could learn about some of this stuff together, and I think that

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Body Happy Org: what so often happens, particularly with with parents who struggled themselves.

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Body Happy Org: or who've never had to think about this stuff is that a child can go to a parent, and they can say, Hey, I don't feel good about my body. I'm ugly. Someone at school called me fat. What should you know I don't like myself, whatever, and it's such an upsetting thing for a parent to hear. The parent immediately wants to make the child feel better and fix the problem.

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Christine Chessman: So.

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Body Happy Org: And they'll immediately say, Oh, no, you're you're not. You're beautiful, you're not Xyz, or Oh! And they can end up invalidating the child's experience, shutting down a conversation, sometimes even perpetuating the root cause of the problem. If a child comes to you and they say I'm fat, and you respond, oh, no, you're not. You're beautiful. Well, what's that saying about a fat body like, you know? And I think that actually, sometimes we need to get a little bit comfortable with just

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Body Happy Org: not being comfortable and say validate. You know what it's really hard to live in the culture that we live in when there's people at school who are saying unkind things about the way other people look. And you know there's

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Body Happy Org: Papa Big making fun of Daddy Pig's tummy on Telly

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Body Happy Org: these things, and all the Princesses and Disney look the same. And all of this stuff is happening. It's hard, isn't it? And I've struggled with this stuff, too. But I want you to know that you, just because you feel this way. Now, you're not always going to feel this way, and there are certain things that we can do to feel better. Shall we do it together, you know, and I think that can be.

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Christine Chessman: That's fine!

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Body Happy Org: Or validating, create a space where children are more likely to come to you, and rather than be like.

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Body Happy Org: Oh, Mom, course, you have to say that you cause you're my mom. You have to say that you know.

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Christine Chessman: And I think sorry, Ella, just exactly what you said. There, I see it all over, Instagram. You know your own body image is so important for the body image of your kids, and there is an element of shame in that. And women already carry so much shame about absolutely everything they're doing in terms of mothering and carrying the mental load of everything in life. And so I really think.

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Christine Chessman: and to take that shame away. And if, as you say, if you're coming to the conversation, and your kids are already grown up, it's still amazing that you're coming to the conversation and and just talking about it and just learning more about it. I think that's a great starting point.

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Ela Law: I think the the conversation can be held at any age really

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Ela Law: sort of tailor it to younger children, but you can also tailor it to your 25 year old, when you know when, when you have a cup of tea together. And you think actually, this is what I found out. Let's talk about it. I think it's really important to to sort of have that open channel from any age when anything like that comes up and they approach you with with any question or comment, or upset.

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Body Happy Org: I think that

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Body Happy Org: just speaking to your point there, Christine, about how there's lots of people online, particularly talking to mums.

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Body Happy Org: often selling a course, like to make them feel better, and it can be like a really like, almost like a marketing tool. And like, if you don't do this, then you're going to damage. I would love to see some of these conversations aimed at dads, you know, because.

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Body Happy Org: actually, like, where are all the dads in this conversation. I would love to see some of these conversations talking to, you know dads about, hey? Did you know that when you're

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Body Happy Org: talking about, you know? Go hard or go home. And you know, eating clean and doing this like workout. Gym blah blah! You could be reinforcing your son's internalized fat phobia, and he could go to school and make a comment on a girl's body. Oh, actually, this is this is not. This is way more complicated than just like mums wear the bikini like.

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Ela Law: And.

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Christine Chessman: Didn't it? That really it does really upset me, and it's not a gender conversation, nor should it be but it. You know it's this is the way it.

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Body Happy Org: Yeah.

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Ela Law: Yeah, but I hear that so many times when I speak to clients, it's not just the mom that was dieting. That was.

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Christine Chessman: No. Yeah.

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Ela Law: The sort of the trigger point for them to start having issues with food or body image. It's often the comments that the dad made, and the deeply held beliefs that the dad shares that that can be as harmful. So it absolutely isn't just a mum issue, just like it's not just a girl issue. It's about boys as well as girls. So it's it's for it's for everybody. Molly. I've got a question for you. So we.

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Christine Chessman: We have to wrap up, so hurry up.

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Ela Law: I know it's a very quick one. Obviously, we're going to share all of your details in the show notes. But if and I think there probably will be some people who work in education, or very motivated parents, or someone who might be interested in joining your program once it's up and running hopefully next next September. How do they go about it? Is there a wait list? Is there somewhere that they can get registered.

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Body Happy Org: So we already run workshops in schools. We already run Cpd workshops for teachers. So all of that stuff is still happening. The body happy Schools program this whole school, like bringing it all together into a fully comprehensive thing

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Body Happy Org: that will. There's no wait list. It's like we haven't got that far yet.

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Ela Law: Okay.

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Body Happy Org: But if you go onto our website you'll see all the things that we currently do. So we are already doing workshops with students in schools. We're already doing training for teachers, nurses, public health teams, all sorts of foster carers. We already have a suite of teaching resources that schools can download. And we already have, like a bookshop and resources and posters and stickers. So all of that stuff does already exist. And we also have an online

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Body Happy Org: like webinars, masterclass for parents as well. So the best thing to do is to go to our website. And if you want to get your schools involved and let your schools know about how we can support them now. And in the future, when the full school program is up and running.

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Body Happy Org: The best thing to do is to go to our website, go to the Families section and then click down to tell your school, and you'll find a whole page, a whole suite of information, packs, template letters, lots of different things that you can use to let your school know about the work that we're doing and how we can support them.

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Ela Law: That is absolutely awesome. That's so good. Thanks for doing all of that for everybody. That's amazing.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, I mean this, this, podcast in itself is going to be an amazing resource for people just to come back to and listen. And we'll put all of that in the show notes. But for now, Molly, thank you so much for joining us, and we might have to get you back again in the future, because there's a lot more to talk about. Thank you.

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Body Happy Org: Thank you so much for having me.

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Ela Law: Thank you. Bye.