Healthy bodies and ‘perfect’ bodies are not the same thing, new campaign says

A NEW campaign which sets out to show that ‘healthy’ bodies and ‘perfect’ bodies are not the same thing has proven a massive hit — cellulite, smudged makeup, sweat patches and all.

‘I jiggle, therefore I am’

BEING an active woman rarely involves looking picture-perfect — and a new commercial shows that there’s nothing wrong with that.

Sport England, an organisation providing services and funding to sports programs in the UK, launched the This Girl Can campaign on January 12 after research showed that 75 per cent of English women would like to be more active.

“Before we began this campaign, we looked very carefully at what women were saying about why they felt sport and exercise was not for them,” Sport England CEO Jennie Price said in a press release.

“Some of the issues, like time and cost, were familiar, but one of the strongest themes was a fear of judgment. Worries about being judged for being the wrong size, not fit enough and not skilled enough came up time and again.”

The 90-second ad shows women of all body types participating in their favourite sports — without any concern for what they look like. Phrases like “I jiggle, therefore I am” are interspersed with shots of women working out — cellulite, smudged makeup, sweat patches and all. None of the women featured in the ad are models or professional athletes, reinforcing the message that athletics are accessible to everyone.

“In This Girl Can we want to tell the real story of women who exercise and play sport,” Price said. “They come in all shapes and sizes and all levels of ability. They have a myriad of reasons for doing what they do. If you are wondering if you should join them -— or carry on -— this campaign says it really doesn’t matter if you are a bit rubbish or completely brilliant, the main thing is that you are a woman and you are doing something, and that deserves to be celebrated.”

This article was written by Nina Bahadur from Huffington Post and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Originally published as Healthy bodies and ‘perfect’ bodies are not the same thing, new campaign says