Rose McEachern had suffered from childhood obesity for as long as she could remember, until she came to college and decided to change her lifestyle.
To McEachern, being skinny equaled being happy. However, no matter how much the number on the scale got smaller, she never got happier.
Now, as the assistant director for UF’s Student Government Women’s Affair Cabinet, McEachern was in charge of planning an event for Spring semester: Everybody for Every body.
Its overall goal was to empower people and promote body image peace.
On Wednesday, the cabinet held a discussion about how women should change their perspectives, not their images. McEachern got inspiration to organize this event from her own personal experience, she said. She finally felt happy when she stopped trying to obtain something superficial to get others to like her and instead focused on how she felt about herself.
The event was held at 6:30 p.m. on Norman Field and was organized to spark an inspiring, informative and interactive discussion on promoting healthy and positive body image.
UF doctoral student Nicki Karimipour led the discussion and spoke about the importance of body positivity. Karimipour is writing her dissertation on how social media use, specifically Facebook and Instagram, affects the female individual’s perception of body image.
Karimipour blames sociocultural determinants, which means women are socialized from a young age to care about how they look.
This is heightened with social media because of the constant need to post a “pretty” photo and the ability to see everybody else’s posts.
The topic sparked a conversation with the people at the event, and many agreed with Karimipour’s outlook.
“Pretending like it doesn’t matter is not the answer, because it always does, and it always will,” Karimipour said.
She said there is nothing wrong with wanting to look good; it is just important it is for the right reasons.
The event was closed with a yoga class led by UF RecSports yoga instructor Kayla Marcus and free popsicles from The Hyppo. McEachern said she wanted to have a yoga class at the event because it made an impact on her happiness.
“After a year of trying to lose weight and never being happy with the results, I turned to yoga because it is a practice that focuses on the well-being of the mind,” McEachern said. “As cheesy as it sounds, it taught me the importance of feeling content with yourself, regardless of how you look, and that made a huge difference.”
