“Don’t forget to smile,” Syleena Powell wrote on the covered bathroom mirror in the Florida Gym on Monday.
Powell joined other students on campus who wrote inspirational messages like “Love yourself,” “My confidence lets my inner beauty shine” and “You are beautiful!” on the mirrors.
This is the second year GatorWell has sponsored Mirrorless Monday, a project to promote confidence and a positive body image.
GatorWell partnered with Housing and Residence Education, the Student Health Care Center and RecSports to cover bathroom mirrors in the residence halls, RecSports buildings and the Student Health Care Center with paper to encourage students to write positive messages on them.
Natalie Rella, a GatorWell health promotion specialist, brought it to UF last year to kick off National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, which runs from Feb. 22 to 28.
Rella said while people do suffer from eating disorders, more students are impacted by everyday unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the way they look.
She said writing positive messages will take the exercise to a higher level of comprehension.
“Skip the mirror and try to reprogram your brain to think more positively about your body,” Rella said.
Powell, an African American studies sophomore at UF, said Mirrorless Monday was important because it promoted inner beauty, not outer beauty. Covering the mirror is covering the main source of outer reflection.
Powell, 19, said she hopes GatorWell continues this project.
“I think it helps to promote a positive body image by reminding them every time they look in the mirror that they are beautiful,” Powell said. “It helps them understand that the mirror doesn’t define their beauty.”
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 2/24/2015 under the headline “Mirrors used to promote self-image for GatorWell event”]
Niamh Clancy, an 18-year-old UF biology freshman, writes on a mirror on Plaza of the Americas as part of the “Mirrorless Monday” event, which was sponsored by GatorWell and partnered with Housing and Residence Education, the Student Health Care Center and RecSports. They invited students to write things they liked about themselves on mirrors around campus. Clancy wrote, “I like to make others happy.”
