©GirlGuidingUK
I was a girl guide once. I loved being one. The sense of community and doing different badges practically every week. It was fab to see my uniform full of badges and I was proud of who I was and loving life. I was not too bothered about the way I looked and definately was not self-conscious of any part of my body. I had body confidence. It was not important and I did not have images of the ‘perfect body’ or ‘perfect face’ in my face in terms of media. I used to run several times a week so I was only interested in having a strong body. At guides I don’t think we talked about body confidence and there was never a badge to get us to understand and appreciate how we felt about our bodies and also understand what is real and what is not when we saw girls in magazines. It was different then – there girls were fully clothed or indeed modest and not posing sexually.
The Body Confidence Badge
Now as you know it is a different story and so many girls feel inadequate with how they look – their face and their body – so how wonderful that the Girl Guides have introduced a new badge I agree that it is very sad that they have had to do this but it seems a good idea. We need to get the same message to as many girls as possible that no matter what you look like it is not important and does not need to be changed. We need to give them the confidence to feel good about themselves and increase their self-esteem so they don’t starve themselves or feel they have to excessively exercise. I hope the girls take the badge seriously and the message comes through loud and clear.
What do you think of the new badge?
For more information on promoting body confidence have a look at Being Me (And Loving It).
