Tuesday, February 21st, 2012, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
National Keynote Speaker - Ragen Chastain - "The Positive Body: Real Options for Health, Happiness and High Self-Esteem"
Location: Reitz Union, Rion Ballroom B
Through the lens of one woman's journey from nearly dying of an eating disorder to winning three National Dance Championships as a healthy plus-size athlete, Ragen will discuss real options for health, happiness and high self-esteem for people of all sizes, starting wherever you are right now!

Body Lovin' Quotes and Affirmations

Hey Beautiful!

Did you know?...

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance."
"Beauty is not in the face; beauty if a light in the heart."
"Every body is beautiful."
"You are exactly who and what and where you are supposed to be and you are lovely. (Anything else would be just plain ridiculous!)"
"Our bodies are apt to be are autobiographies."
"Our first and last love is self-love."
"To be beautiful means to be yourself."
"You are loved."
"Within my body are all the sacred places of the world, and the most profound pilgrimage I can ever make is within my own body."
"My body is an instrument, not an ornament."
"All I can do is be me, whatever that may be."
"You are enough."

Please share any other body positive or self-love quotes or affirmations that make you smile :)

Inspiring Guest Post!

Here's an incredible guest post written by BAM member Laura Guzman!:


        "The second step to end Fat Talk, as part of Fat Talk Free Week sponsored by Tri Delta, states, "The only way to Change the Conversation is to have the conversation." Except I regret to inform you, you're having the wrong conversation. Instead of ending fat talk amongst those who feel fat or those who shame others for their fatness, and then promoting the adoption of this size-blind ideology (which erases people's experiences), you should be addressing how being fat is nothing to be shameful of. It is not a characteristic that says anything about you as a person.

         My dad's fat; my grandmothers are fat; the majority of my immediate family is fat. I am genetically predisposed to fatness. Fat acceptance is along the same vein as body acceptance, so you'd think a project dealing with the latter would stumble across the former through a simple google search. In my opinion, ending fat talk does not seem like a fantastic way to decrease the stigma surrounding fatness. I'm not saying that it isn't a great effort or that it shouldn't be done, I'm just further pointing out that we're having the wrong conversation. There are women who embrace their fatness, not in the way that ignorant people usually assume (fat acceptance is not synonymous with obesity promotion), and these women are at peace and even dare to love their bodies. This project fails to address them, and personally I feel like they are passing up a real opportunity to properly change mindsets.

         In addition, the website lists some Fat Talk alternatives in order to modify your behavior. One of the suggestions given is to provide encouragement. The site states, "If you or your friends have set weight loss or fitness goals focus on the dedication and perseverance it takes to make healthy lifestyle choices, instead of that they are trying to lose weight. Rather than saying 'You can definitely tell you're losing weight' say something like 'You seem really happy with your new passion for yoga. It makes me want to try it.'" This confuses me greatly. How can you set a weight loss goal that is not directly related to weight loss? It's in the title. Also, there's the idea that somehow weight is indicative of your health! Fun! Newsflash, a weight loss goal is not a "healthy lifestyle [choice]". Many studies have even shown that there might be a link between weight loss and an increased mortality rate. Eating intuitively and engaging in an exercise routine that interests you, that's healthy. Dieting isn't. Diets don't even work. If you'd like me to amend that, I will: diets don't work in the long-term. In fact, yo-yo dieting, or weight cycling, is actually harmful to your health, you know that thing that you're supposedly losing weight for? Yeah, well, in reality you're causing yourself more harm than good. Gaining back the lost weight from that diet, which will most likely happen within five years at least, results in "fluctuations in blood pressure, heart rate, sympathetic activity, glomerular filtration rate, blood glucose and lipids"; all of these "put an additional load on the cardiovascular system". The study claims that if one partakes in yo-yo dieting for an extended period of time it "will stress the cardiovascular system and probably contribute to the overall cardiovascular morbidity". 

         I don't mean to shame anyone about their actions, but for your benefit please educate yourself so that you don't get stuck in this detrimental cycle. For as much as this project preaches against the thin ideal, it does not seem to be promoting Health At Every Size (HAES), which is worrisome. I mean, they say that health comes in all shapes and sizes, but yet there they are encouraging weight loss goals as "healthy lifestyle choices" when they're anything but. While I understand that good intentions are the foundation of this cause, good intentions aren't worth anything unless they manifest into holistically good actions, and this is not exactly the case here."

Please email me at keulmer@gmail.com if you too would like your voice to be heard on the BAM blog!

The Self-Esteem Act Calls for Truth in Advertising

Here's an awesome post from AdiosBarbie.com!

The Self-Esteem Act Calls for Truth in Advertising

Image created by Adios Barbie students

By Pia Guerrero, Co-Founder/Editor

Women and girls are bombarded everyday with thousands of media messages, from billboards to bus stops ads, telling us our worth is not in who we are, but in what we look like. The media and our culture tell us we should be sexy, thin, young, and perfect—just like the actresses and models plastered across ads everywhere we turn. We strive and struggle to look like these flawless creatures that–thanks to Photoshop–don’t actually exist. We’re buying what’s being sold and our self-esteem is taking a huge hit.

That’s why Off Our Chests, a new women’s online magazine and apparel line, has launched a campaign to create The Self-Esteem Act, a bill requiring “truth in advertising” labels be attached to advertising and editorials with models who have been Photoshopped or airbrushed beyond touch-ups. This announcement comes on the heels of news that in Britain, L’Oréal was forced to pull an ad campaign for falsely advertising an anti-aging product featuring the super Photoshopped images of Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington. In the words of British MP Jo Swinson, who led the effort to ban the ads, the images were “not representative of the results the product could achieve”. This move sets a precedent, opening the door for a wave of industry change here and abroad.

In addition to this ban, law makers in Britain and France have called for disclaimers in the form of health warning labels to accompany airbrushed images in ads, but in the US no proposals for such labeling have gotten traction to date. Needless to say, at Adios Barbie we are excited about the campaign to create the Self-Esteem Act and have been brimming with questions. We connected with Off Our Chests co-founder, Seth Matlins, who started the company with his wife Eva. Matlins spoke to us candidly about the vision for the Off Our Chest’s clothing company and plans for The Self-Esteem Act.

AB:  In order to make real change, awareness must be followed by concrete action and for that we want to acknowledge Off Our Chests for putting your money where your mouth is. What are next steps? What do you plan to do specifically to get this legislation passed?

Matlins: Before we can get it passed, we need to get it introduced and sponsored.  We’re working to build what we’re calling a “Coalition of the Concerned”…NGOs, talent, individuals, media companies and organizations who want to stand with us and support what we’re trying to accomplish and do.  As we’re building this coalition (and we’re open to better names) we’re simultaneously beginning to approach members of the Senate to discuss the situation, our intentions, and enlist their support and commitment.

AB: Do you have plans to partner with other groups in the self-esteem and body image movement to promote and pass the act?

Matlins: We have hopes of doing just that. Everything we’ve done since the moment we launched Off Our Chests and OffOurChests.com has been based on the premise that we’re all in this together, that we’re all connected, and that it takes a village. That goes for raising our daughter and our son…all your readers are contributing to the world in which we raise them and in which they grow up…to turning The Self Esteem Act from an announcement into life changing legislation.  We can’t do it alone, we don’t want to do it alone, and we need everyone’s productive support and efforts.

AB: In terms of your apparel line, do you have plans to expand your sizing and models for your own line to include women of color and women of different shapes and sizes?

Matlins: We love that you’re calling us on that. The short answer is yes, though all of our shirts run into XL sizing even now. We did so many things wrong with our initial launch of the apparel line, and will do many things differently moving forward.  The models we’ve used were images supplied to us by a manufacturer and, ironically, our shirts were simply Photoshopped on them.  We’re learning how to build an apparel line and company one mistake and one misspent dollar at a time.  Eva and I are the white parents of two beautiful black children, so we’re pretty conscious of providing a spectrum of images [on Off Our Chests], which we haven’t yet done, but will moving forward.

AB: Passing an act like this is a huge step. As a former CAA agent, do you have any plans to hold hands with Hollywood, as Geena Davis has done, to promote more realistic images of women and girls in the media?

Matlins: Hollywood and Madison Avenue play such an enormous and unrivaled role in setting and resetting our cultural norms, standards, ideals and expectations….and given where I come from and what I’ve done, we’d be crazy not to try and enlist their support, they can make all of this so much easier and quicker. Geena’s done and doing amazing work, though I think we’ll try and be a bit more strategically provocative than she’s been. We love Hollywood and whatever negative effects media has comes not from malice but from benign neglect, in our opinion.  We want to help play a part in making every one more mindful of their role and responsibility.  This crisis of confidence isn’t any one’s fault – it’s everyone’s.  Let’s stop blaming and judging and just start fixing and changing.  Then we can all feel happier.

AB: How did you come up with the name “The Self-Esteem Act”? It seems some recent commenters to your piece at HuffPo responded negatively to the use of “self-esteem”. Why not “Truth in Advertising Act?”

Matlins: Self-Esteem is what we’re trying to positively affect with everything Off Our Chests is and does.  Truth-in-advertising is how we hope to help affect it.  We decided to focus on the ends not the means, for it’s the ends, it’s the epidemic crisis of confidence hating on the happy of so many girls and women, that we’re trying to help make a little bit (if not a lot) better.

AB: Your t-shirt line carries some great messaging that makes folks think. You’ll be working with Fred Segal, a store known to cater to the LA/Hollywood elite. Many customers are (or are related to) the producers, celebrities and artists who work on the very ads that heavily use Photoshop. What is your thinking behind having Fred Segal be the target market for your clothing line?

Matlins: My family is the Fred Segal consumer, and their market is very much one we want to reach, influence and sell to.  If you want to change the conversation on a cultural level the way we do, we believe you have to enlist the makers of culture.  It’s where I come from, it’s what I know, and Hollywood is and can be a force for so much good if they embrace their power to do good.

From before we launched the line, we committed 10% of profits (profits, btw, we don’t yet have – but against which we’ve already written a check) to an amazing, amazing group called We Stop Hate (www.westophate.org).  Founded by the amazing Emily-Anne Rigal, who only now is 17, WSH works to raise what they call “teen esteem” as a way to end bullying of all types.  They are smart, and soulful and effective.  We will always do something with a percentage of our profits that furthers the mission and cause of Off Our Chests…making girls and women happier.

AB: What do you say to those who may feel this campaign is a publicity stunt to promote your own clothing brand for profit and name as body image thought leaders?

Matlins: Well, the first thing we’d say is would you like to buy a tee shirt?  The second is, yes, we hope this is good for our brand and our revenues. Our intent is to build the world’s most meaningful – and one of its most valuable – women’s brands. One capable of changing the world and making it a better place for our daughter and son, and everyone else.

We are not a charity, and beyond being parents we have neither aspiration nor qualification to be seen as a body image thought leader.  We just see problems and opportunities and try to address them. In fact, our focus is much more emotional than physical, and our clothing line and the other merchandise that will follow are all intended to serve as reminders…reminders to get things off your chest, to live out loud, speak your truth, and let your freak flag fly – even if it’s not very freaky at all.

Body Lovin' Blogothon Day 1

Today's post is from my blog: http://dear-mr-anonymous.blogspot.com/
Remember: if you'd like me to post anything regarding self/body love and acceptance send it my way (keulmer@gmail.com) and I'll put it up on the BAM website for this event! 
Here it is!:


Dear Mr. Anonymous,

Today's the start of the About Curves event, Lingerie Loves You Curves! About Curves is hosting a charity drive along with a two-week long blogothon (starting today through the 21st of August) during which they urge everyone to fight back against industries that make money from women's lack of self-esteem, and share our stories so that we can help empower women everywhere.


I'm aiming to write a post each day for the next two weeks (but I might miss a few here and there) for this wonderful event. I'll try to mix it up a bit with posts about body acceptance, self-esteen, and self-love. <3 Get excited and love yourself! And, here goes my first post!


I wanted to share a few tips on how to show your body and self endless love. I often forget to give myself the amount of love I know I deserve, so I'm going to work especially hard in the coming weeks as well at showing and sending myself huge bundles of love <3


Here we go!:

1. When you look at yourself in the mirror, allow your eyes to drift to the places you love on your body rather than the places you usually pick at and pinch. Maybe you're particularly fond of your neck, or your lips, or your shoulders...whatever part of your body you feel drawn towards maybe ask yourself why it is that you love it. Is it because of its function? Is it because you think it's attractive? Is it because someone once complimented it? Whatever the reason just stare at that part and send loving thoughts its way! And, if you have a hard time finding a place on your body you love just stare into your eyes and get lost in their depth and swirling colors for a while!
2. Take yourself out on a date! Just you and no one else! Maybe go to the movies, or on a night bike ride, or cook a fancy dinner for one! Why wait to treat yourself the way you've alway wanted to? Start doing so NOW!
3. Make yourself comfortable in your body. Wear comfy clothes and cozy shoes- and never sacrifice how you feel for how you look. If you wear clothes you're not comfortable in, it may hinder your being completely present to the moment, leaving you constantly fidgeting and obsessing over how you look. See how you feel if you spend the whole day in your pj's, or in a loose and flowy dress, or in just plain ol' shorts and a T-shirt- whatever your body yearns for!
4. Don't be afraid to say "no" when you want to. This is an especially difficult one for me since I have a hard time letting people down and was born a people-pleaser, but with practice it has most definitely gotten easier. Say "no" to situations and things that don't resonate with your heart. Trust me, it'll be okay. You may be afraid of disappointing someone by saying "no" but that person will be able to deal with your response and will most likely move on just moments later. And if they don't, well, do you really want to associate with someone who doesn't support you following what's true to your heart.
5. Sit with yourself and a cup of tea, feeling just how rich you are. How rich you are in regards to being in good health, possessing the ability to move, having furniture to sit on and water to drink, being free, having a family and friends, having clothes to keep you warm, and the list goes on. We are rich in so many ways but rarely feel and reflect on this wealth.
6. Play! Be a kid again and reopen your world to all your favorite childhood activities. Blow bubbles, skip rope, rollerblade, roll in the mud, jump in puddles, build a fort! Give your heart back your childhood joys and memories by reenacting them.
7. Cook your favorite meal and stay attuned and present to each bite. If you're going to be eating your favorite meal you might as well send all your energy towards being completely submerged in that moment and enjoying it! Follow your taste-buds on their wild journey as you chew, slurp, and swallow all that scrumptious food!
8. Write a love letter....to yourself! The world needs more love letters. YOU need more love letter! You can never show yourself enough love and who doesn't love reading about how much a person loves them? So how about you write, mail, and then read about how much you love yourself!
9. Paint your soul, inner child, inner goddess, or whatever you see when you close your eyes and look inside yourself. And throw realism out the window, letting your hand go wild!
10. Create your dream job! I had to make a scrapbook about my dream job for a class a few years back and it was one of the most amazing journeys I've ever experienced! Shove aside reality, disregard how feasible it is, and forget the money- just imagine what you would love to do if nothing mattered but what your heart stretches out for- and maybe one day this dream will become a reality :)
11. Travel! Let your curiosity run wild and get out to explore unfamiliar territory. Allow yourself to enter the world of sensation overload as you experience this new and enticing land. Whether you decide to adventure off in you hometown or hop on a plane, be open to the experience and truly feel it.
12. Think about all the people who love and care about you. There are so many more than you realize- your family, your friends, your roommates, your pet, your teachers, I bet even some strangers genuinely love you and care about how you are doing. 
13. Don't judge ANYONE! This is extremely hard, but we have to remember that we can never truly know a person. There is so much more to a person than how we perceive them. We will never know exactly what a person has been through in there past, how they feel deep down, all of their insecurities and emotions, and all the things that have shaped them into who they are that were beyond their control. So, when you catch yourself forming assumptions about someone try to send compassion their way to combat these judgements. It gets easier with practice and some of this compassion will most definitely reflect back onto yourself. 

That's all for now! LOVE YOURSELF! You truly are an incredibly wonderful and beautiful person <3

Get ready for this Body-Lovin' Blogathon

"Women are bombarded every day with messages that they are not beautiful enough. About curves is fighting back with a "Lingerie Love Your Curves" charity drive. 

This two-week “blogathon” event is dedicated to size acceptance and self-acceptance based on the philosophy of health at every size.

Let’s fight back against industries that make money from women’s lack of self-esteem, and share our stories so that we can help empower women everywhere. Let’s celebrate our curves!"

Click HERE for more information on how to get involved in this wonderful event!

Also, if you have a blog, twitter, or facebook help us bombard the Internet world from August 8th to the 21st with your experiences with size acceptance and self-esteem! OR, you can email me (keulmer@gmail.com) anything related to body/self acceptance and I will post it on the BAM website.

Embrace your body. You're beautiful <3