MELISSA SUFFIELD:Hi, I'm Melissa Suffield, actress and reporter.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:And I'm Radzi Chinyanganya, athlete and TV presenter.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:If you're a fan of EastEnders, you remember me as Lucy Beale, who I played through my teenage years. 'I was constantly being judged on my appearance 'rather than my acting ability.' It put a real pressure on me to be slim and beautiful all the time. It meant I spent half my life wearing push up bras and Spanx pants.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:What?! Isn't Spandex back?
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Yeah, in the back of wardrobe.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Now, although I may be a guy, I've had my fair share of feeling insecure about the way I look. I'm definitely not tall, and I'm far from Mr. Universe
MELISSA SUFFIELD:But let me say, this man proved that real fitness beats giant abs any day. At just 21, he signed up to the TV show Gladiators.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:And, weren't you the lightest contestant they ever had on the show?
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Yep, I was ten stones.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Yet, in a David and Goliath style battle, Radzi won. Woo!
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Anyway, we've come here to a high school in the West Country, to conduct an exciting new experiment.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:And it's called Body Talk.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Hi guys.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Hey.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Hi. I'm Melissa.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:And I'm Radzi.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:We're here today to talk to you guys about body image.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:So, first of all, what do you think the definition of body image is?
MALE STUDENT #1:The way you feel about being who you are.
FEMALE STUDENT #1:I think body image is like the way you feel and how others view you.
MALE STUDENT #2:I think body image is when you define yourself into a category of what you think you look like.
MALE STUDENT #1:You judge yourself, and your self-esteem.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Body image is basically the way you feel about the way you look.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:So now before we do anything else, we'd like you to fill out our Body Talk surveys.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:All we need you to do is fill out on a scale of 1 to 10 how you're feeling about the way you look right now.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:So if you put between five and ten, you're feeling good about yourself.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:And if you put from nought to five, you're probably having a bit of a rubbish day.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:But don't worry, it's totally anonymous so we want you to be completely honest.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Ok, so this is my ballot box. I'm going to ask you to fill them out and put them in here. Is that ok? The influence of the media certainly needs to take a big part of the blame when it comes to us feeling bad about our bodies.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:But there are other causes closer to us which can also make us feel bad. Body talk and body bullying are quite common.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:You know what we mean. When we say something bad about the way another person looks. Be it your friends, your classmates, a celebrity or even yourself.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Now you might think you're being funny but put yourself on the receiving end, it can be very upsetting.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:In some cases the impact can be devastating, with long term and even deadly consequences.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Well guys, as we can see from your body image surveys, you're not feeling great about the way you look right now. So, we're going to see if it's possible to improve those scores over just two days.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Yeah, what we want to do is ban body talk bullying and we want to see if we can get you feeling a bit better about yourselves.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:So what we're going to do is called bright body talk and it's not just about fanning negative body talk but encouraging positive body talk.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:So over the next couple of days, we want you guys to stop all of your negative comments to each other and just basically feed each other compliments about how great you look and about how great you are. No more negativity. Yes?
ALL:Yeah!
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Positivity?
ALL:Yeah!
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Cool. Compliments for your friends?
ALL:Yeah!
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Wicked. Good to go.
BELL RINGS
MELISSA SUFFIELD:'I say, are you getting your friends down with your witty body image banter? When you say bad things about the way someone looks, are you making them feel sad about the way they look? Well? Are you? Time to try bright body talk!'
FEMALE STUDENT #2:You're such a good singer.
CHLOE:I really like your eyes, Kinnie, they really bring out your face.
KINNIE:Thank you, Chloe.
MALE STUDENT #3:Yeah, I like your new Facebook picture.
MALE STUDENT #4:Cheers, yeah.
FEMALE STUDENT #3:I like your eye colour, it's really nice鈥
FEMALE STUDENT #4:Thank you.
FEMALE STUDENT #3:It's like reflecting light to your face.
MALE STUDENT #5:I like your hair, man.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Well, our top team have now spent a whole day partaking in our body talk experiment.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:But before we see how it's gone, there's just one more thing we need them to do.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:One of the biggest problems is that we don't realise how critical we're being about ourselves.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:We partake in self bullying and we regularly beat ourselves up.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Most of the time, we don't even realise we're actually doing it.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:You know the kind of thing we mean. Radzi, I feel so fat today - I look awful.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Fat?! You look fine. I'm the one that's skinny and puny.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:As if! Have you seen the state of my little finger? It's not so little, is it?
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Your little finger! My hair is out of control at the moment. Okay guys, behind me is our very own Big Brother Radzi room and what we want you to do, we've got a camera set up, we just want to hear about you and hear about how you're feeling. So we want to hear how positive thing about how you're feeling,
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:and a positive piece about what you think you're looking like.
MALE STUDENT #3:I like that I'm funny and I like that I'm tall.
MALE STUDENT #5:I like how I'm quite sociable and I like my eyes.
MALE STUDENT #6:The one thing that is good about me is my hair.
MALE STUDENT #7:Is my muscularity and my supreme athleticism.
MALE STUDENT #8:I'm quite clever.
MALE STUDENT #9:I can make friends quite easily. And I also like my hair.
MALE STUDENT #2:I'm a good guy to hang out with.
MALE STUDENT #10:I like my smile and my athleticism.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Ok guys, this is my Big Sister Melissa room.
FEMALE STUDENT #5:I like my eyebrows.
FEMALE STUDENT #2:I like my eyes, and about myself, I can be a good friend.
FEMALE STUDENT #6:I'm good at athletics and I like my eyes.
FEMALE STUDENT #7:I'm considered a good singer.
FEMALE STUDENT #1:And I also like my hair. A good listener and I like my mouth.
FEMALE STUDENT #8:I'm a good dancer and I like my dimples.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Well, we've almost come to the end of the school day.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:And our young group have filled out the same forms that they filled out yesterday.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:But the question is, has two days of positive body talk helped to improve the teenagers body image and have they stopped body bullying?
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Let's find out.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Well guys, yesterday, on your body image survey scores you got, out of 160, 77, and we were looking to improve that. And today you did. On your surveys, out of 160, you got 111!
CHEERING
MELISSA SUFFIELD:Well done, guys.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Absolutely awesome.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:So do you think you're going to be more positive from now on?
ALL: Yeah!
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:Well guys, it just goes to show that in two days we've started to beat body image bullying.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:With the start of bright body talk.
RADZI CHINYANGANYA:It's the fastest, and potentially the easiest way for us to feel better about our body image.
MELISSA SUFFIELD:You've seen how easy it is, so you give it a try. Keep up the good work, guys.
CHEERING
Video summary
This film aims to demonstrate the potential negative effects of beating ourselves and others up about our bodies.
TV personalities Melissa Suffield and Radzi Chinyanganya conduct their Bright Body Talk Test at a secondary school in Bristol by banning negative body teasing and encouraging young people to emphasise their positive qualities.
They also make us aware of how commonly we engage in body bullying directed at ourselves, and how this might affect our body image.
Can banning body talk improve the way that young people feel about themselves?
Try it for yourself and make some positive changes today.
This clip is form the series Your Body: Your Image.
Teacher Notes
The clip could be used as part of a unit on positive self-image and self-esteem.
Students could use the clip to discuss body image and body talk and to help them to create a poster campaign (or a bigger campaign) for 'Bright Body Talk' in school.
Students could be encouraged to make a positive statement about themselves in the format shown in the clip.
This clip is relevant for teaching Modern Studies and PSHE at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 and National 4 and 5.
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