Body Image in the Primary School

• The average child watches between 20,000 and 40,000 adverts a year.
• Girls as young as six are cutting down on what they eat to stay thinner.
• Three quarters of ten and eleven year olds would like to change their appearance.

Body image and its impact upon self-esteem has been recognised as an issue which affects increasingly younger children. Research in this area has traditionally focused on adolescents yet anxieties about appearance often develop at a much earlier age than this. Primary schools have a critical role in helping children to develop a healthy body image through positive intervention.

Body Image in the Primary School offers step-by-step lessons for teachers to address this issue. It examines the continuous media and peer pressures that young children are exposed to and encourages children to recognise their own strengths and qualities and to become resilient members of society. The authors demonstrate a practical range of activities and projects for teachers to work with designed to make them confident in discussing body image in the classroom.

This book offers:

• lesson plans for Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2 and the transition to Key Stage 3
• practical guidance on how to support and involve parents and carers
• analysis on the changing social influences of home life, peer pressure and the media
• overviews of research on the links between body image, academic achievement and emotional well-being.

This book contains explicit links to SEAL and the ECM outcomes and will be of significant interest to all teachers, teaching assistants and practitioners working with primary children.

Nicky Hutchinson and Chris Calland both work as behaviour specialists and education consultants in and around Bristol. They are both teachers who have many years' experience at both primary and secondary level.