Body-image facts and perceptions

Health Enrichment Action Team (HEAT) is one of the four teams at PULSE (Peers Understanding Listening Supporting Educating), Cal Poly’s health center, that “promote healthy lifestyle choices and believe in making a difference in the lives of their peers,” according to PULSE webpage.

For the past four years, nutrition student Samantha Van Natta, co-coordinator of the  (HEAT), has studied the effects obesity has on health.

Last quarter,  Van Natta created with a group a series of workshops that will be used to help combat childhood obesity. She has also done several presentations through PULSE on weight management. 

Below is a video where Van Natta talks about latent discrimination against people’s body images.

 

Full interview with Van Nata

How do we categorize body types?

What are the reasons for someone’s being overweight?

What do you mean when you say ethnicity is one of the reasons?

Are there any psychological/emotional reasons?

What are the reasons in America?

How about skinny people?

What are the effects of being over- and under-weight?

Do they have a choice to be over- or under-weight?

Does discrimination against over- and under-weight people exist?

Anything else you would like to add?

Van Nata would like to share with readers the two following videos, which also touch on the topic of body images.

Click here to watch the second video.

Other stories in this blog:

• Color-blind doesn’t mean black and white. It means colorless.
• Major rivalry
• What is it like to be a person with a disability?
• Gender equity
• Will you date a short person?
• The marginalized group no one ever thinks of: transfer students