NoBODY is Perfect

St. Mary's Secondary School, Convent Of Mercy, Mallow, Co. Cork, 2016

CATEGORY: Make Our World a Better Place for Young People Challenge

The Idea

The goal of the No_Body Is Perfect campaign is to raise awareness about muscle dysmorphia and pro anorexic websites that actively encourage people to change their body shapes. Pro anorexic websites encourage users to actively reduce daily calories intake to dangerous levels. These websites are extremely dangerous to vulnerable individuals who suffer from eating disorders and the St Mary's students feel that these websites need to be removed from the Internet. They were very angry that the internet has no filters/security on promoting these negative websites.

The Action

The team created the Social Media GROW campaign. Colm Cooper and Seamus Harnedy became ambassadors for their GROW campaign. #growin2newbeginnings. They visited local primary schools, gyms, medical centres and doctor’s surgeries to hang up posters/leaflets to raise awareness for their YSI campaign.

They hosted a Table Quiz for 2nd year students, created a collage of signatures to show support for their YSI No-Body is Perfect Campaign and created a Nobody Is Perfect Self-worth Declaration. They also held a balloon release at their school in October to show support for eating disorder victims. Celebrity Chef Rachel Allen visited their school to speak about the importance of nutrition, healthy lifestyles and looking after yourself.

The team collaborated with a number of people during the course of their project. They worked with the Mallow Red Cross, The Town Council, The Mallow Gardaí and their school management to organise a Colour Run for over 500 participants. They worked with Nutritionist, Niamh Barry from Mallow who helped them conduct research in relation to pro anorexic websites and allowed them to promote their project in her clinic. They worked with Believe 2 Achieve Mallow fitness centre who also agreed to promote project in their fitness centre.

The Impact

The team plan to get their awareness leaflets (containing Bodywhys helpline information) in every school journal. They believe celebrities like Rachel Allen, Nevan Maguire, Colm Cooper and Seamus Harnedy that have committed to supporting their project will really help them to promote that an active healthy lifestyle, combined with correct nutrition can lead to one achieving success. They are excellent role models for the project and they have really helped their project to gain an impact and raise awareness for the issue.

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