SA Weekend: Taryn Brumfitt’s campaign to stop body shaming among schoolchildren
The number of schoolchildren who are obsessed with their body image has broken the heart of author and campaigner Taryn Brumfitt, so she’s decided to do something about it.
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There are moments that change a life.
Adelaide mother Taryn Brumfitt’s came in 2012 when, without thinking too deeply about it, she posted before and after photos of herself on Facebook. The before shot was Brumfitt looking ripped in a silver bikini; the other a tastefully naked shot of her very normal body as she headed into middle age after three children.
It caused a stir, and then it created a movement. The Russian camera crew that flew here, the headlines in Paris and the appearances on US talk shows are in the past but Brumfitt is now the face of the Embrace Body Image Movement, based in Adelaide, which has in a new book turned its focus to very young primary school children.
The outpourings of support and relief that followed her personal stand against body-shaming culture – a never-explained belief system that is so ingrained most women accept it as part of daily life – made Brumfitt realise the issue was bigger than she had realised. A documentary, Embrace, which followed in 2016, was based on her experience but used professional guidance to encourage women not to waste another minute doing battle with their bodies.
In the course of showing the documentary Brumfitt, a photographer, visited hundreds of schools and began hearing stories from teenagers who were already unhappily obsessed with their body shape and size.
“I was hearing from boys and girls heartbreaking stories about how they felt about their bodies,” Brumfitt says. “They were telling me how they hated the way they looked, how they felt bullied on social media, how they didn’t feel like they could keep up with what it means to be beautiful.”
An academic study on the impact of the Embrace documentary showed how successful it was in changing older people’s lives by raising body confidence and reducing the pressure towards dieting and self-shaming. Maybe it would work for younger people, too?
“Now we had the data that showed just how effective it was as a resource,” Brumfitt says. “Knowing that, and being in schools and hearing these stories, it felt like we were almost getting to them too late when I was seeing them in their teenage years. It just made sense to start getting to people earlier.”
Embrace Your Body, a book for primary school students about appreciating the body you were given, came out of a song that was launched last year and which found huge traction with teachers and parents wanting to enforce its positive message. That response made the need for a book even more clear. Brumfitt was appalled by research last year that showed 70 per cent of Australian schoolchildren rated body image as their number one issue, and it made the problem even more urgent.
“That is outrageous,” she says. “We weren’t born into the world hating our bodies; we have learnt this behaviour. I am not OK as a mother, as a leader, as a woman, that kids can’t be kids. It’s so heartbreaking. It’s not their sole purpose to be on this planet to go to war with their body.”
The colourfully illustrated book is simply written and its message could be understood by children as young as three, but Brumfitt wants to get across that it is more than just a book; it is the opening point for conversation.
“It’s an opportunity for parents and carers and teachers to open up a safe space to talk about our bodies and really get across a positive message to respect and nourish and move your body,” she says. “You’re kids – enjoy it.”
Her work with adult body image is still her main focus. The night before we spoke she had posted on Instagram her fast pace during an 8km run, and it was something of which she was personally proud, without needing to see herself on the front of Runner’s World.
“It resonated because the Embrace philosophy is not about sitting on the couch and eating 20 doughnuts,” she says. “It’s about respecting your body, too.”
Looking back eight years ago, when her inbox overflowed with 7000 messages after just one post, she can see there was barely any discussion then about what was going on. It was almost a hidden secret shared by women, including Brumfitt who says that back then she also hated her body.
“Now it is such a big subject, and thank goodness,” she says. “Those 7000 emails said to me there is a global epidemic so it became about putting some strategies into the world to try and fix it.”
The Embrace documentary will be followed in a couple of years by a second documentary that will be tailored for young children, and Adelaide movie star Teresa Palmer and women’s and children’s activist Natasha Stott Despoja have come on as executive producers. It was about to go into production the week COVID-19 shut everything down. Some animation work has been done instead and work will resume at full speed once the restrictions lift.
“I think we consider ourselves to be a bit of a conduit to the health professionals … we put a creative layer to it and are able to get the messages out to the masses that way,” Brumfitt says. “It’s always a really lovely team effort; we are surrounded by brilliant people.”
Embrace Your Body by Taryn Brumfitt
(Penguin Random House Australia, $19.99) is in bookstores now