Most kids even from an early age have always enjoyed dressing up or aspiring to look like various role models from fictional characters to sportsmen, and other colourful characters of their time. But never before have so many children bothered so much, and particularly from an early age about attaining a perfect body image. Nowadays with our celebrity culture, body image and appearance seem key for kids to feel real self-value. What can we do to help kids feel that that value is more than skin deep?

Well practical help may be at hand to boost children's body confidence with a great new body-image course from two teachers as described below in this article by Joanna Moorhead in the Guardian:

Nicky Hutchinson and Chris Calland – previously a primary and a secondary school teacher respectively – are education consultants in Bristol. They specialise in children’s behaviour, but devised their primary school body-image course, which has just been piloted at Cheddar Grove in the city, after getting requests from heads and teachers for advice on how to deal with the increasing anxiety pupils were displaying about how they looked.

Nicky Hutchinson and Chris Calland – previously a primary and a secondary school teacher respectively – are education consultants in Bristol. They specialise in children’s behaviour, but devised their primary school body-image course, which has just been piloted at Cheddar Grove in the city, after getting requests from heads and teachers for advice on how to deal with the increasing anxiety pupils were displaying about how they looked.

“Parents were calling schools to say their children were stressing about what to wear on non-uniform days, or for friends’ birthday parties, or for the school disco,” says Hutchinson. “The more we looked into it, the more we discovered what a problem it was. By the age of 10, around a third of all girls, and 22% of boys, say how their bodies look is their number one worry. And 10 is also the average age when children start dieting.”

“So much is affected by how you feel about your body – your ability to enjoy life, form good relationships and make the most of opportunities,” says Calland. “But all the indicators are that the current population of young people have lower body confidence than ever before – and that’s borne out by the rising numbers of youngsters with eating disorders and serious anxieties about their appearance.”

It’s certainly not a problem limited to girls. “Boys worry…

To read the rest of this article by Joanna Moorhead please click here …

All children need to feel of value and have self-confidence to live happy effective lives. Feeling and looking good is important at any age but particularly when you are young and finding your own special identity.

As adults who have had to go through this stage ourselves, we should do anything we can to help our children achieve real self-esteem and to increase our children's confidence in their own unique body image.