Dressed in sweatsuits and wearing little makeup, some women woke up Tuesday morning without the worry of coordinating an outfit or styling their hair.
This week, women are celebrating events encouraging positive body image, including the second annual Roll Out of Bed Campaign on Tuesday, the National Organization for Women’s Love Your Body Day on Wednesday and Delta Delta Delta’s Fat Talk Free Week.
MSU Respecting and Understanding Body Image, or RUBI, organized the events on campus.
RUBI members gave away about 120 free T-shirts Tuesday morning with the National Organization for Women’s “Be You(tiful)” logo. The giveaway began at 7 a.m. at four locations and supplies ran out about five minutes later at three of the areas, said Nicole Bays, communication and public relations senior and publicity chair of RUBI.
“(The campaign) is primarily targeted at women because we take so long to get ready everyday,” Bays said. “It’s one of those initiatives to come early, as you are.”
Communication senior Jennifer Gordinier was one of many students who woke up early Tuesday to get a T-shirt.
She said as a teenager she struggled to deal with the social norms often forced on young adults. Women in particular struggle with body image, she said.
“It has a lot to do with media and the way women are portrayed,” Gordinier said. “It’s the way our culture kind of is.”
About 67 percent of students were at an acceptable weight based on their body mass index, according to the MSU Student Health Assessment: Spring 2010. About 39 percent of those students were trying to lose weight.
“Body image isn’t what you are, it’s what you think you are,” RUBI adviser Ronda Bokram said. “People generally feel like they need to lose weight. You rarely talk to people who say, ‘I’m trying to gain weight,’ or, ‘I feel comfortable the way I am.’”
Originally, RUBI planned to paint the rock on Farm Lane for Fat Talk Free Week and have students sign the rock as a pledge to try to stop speaking negatively about their body, but members were unable to reserve it.
Instead, students gathered at Olin Health Center on Wednesday evening and signed a poster in honor of Fat Talk Free Week.
“The pledge has individual importance,” Bays said in an e-mail. “For one person, it may be because they are suffering or recovering from an eating disorder and find ‘fat talk’ to be a catalyst they want to stop. For another person, it may be because they know someone close to them suffering and they want to stop reinforcing the ‘fat talk’ norm.”
Awareness plays a large role in the events on campus this week, Bokram said.
“We don’t think we’re going to change the world overnight,” Bokram said. “But we’re going to try to make people aware.”
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