Body Diversity

Rebecca Puhl, PhD, Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut, discusses weight stigma and mental health care, including bias and discrimination, providing compassionate care. SNHU Login Required.

Amy Pence-Brown asked for strangers to draw hearts on her body. You won't believe what happened next...

After receiving more than 7000 emails and messages from people all over the world, Taryn realized that there was a global body-hating epidemic and felt compelled to find answers. EMBRACE is told from the point of view of Taryn as she traverses the globe talking to experts, women in the street and well-known personalities about the alarming rates of body image issues that are seen in people of all body types. In her affable and effervescent style, Taryn bares all (literally) to explore the factors contributing to this problem and seeks to find solutions. SNHU Login Required.

A PERFECT 14 explores the world of plus size models fighting to reshape the fashion industry and the beauty standards of society. The film follows the journeys of models Elly Mayday (Canada), Kerosene Deluxe (Netherlands) and Laura Wells (Australia) as they struggle against our culture's distorted perception of body image, and questions the fashion industry leaders and pioneers and holds them accountable for their responsibility in size-based segregation. SNHU Login Required.

Global obesity rates are on the rise, but body shaming campaigns are doing more harm than good, says medical anthropologist Nancy N. Chen. Reflecting on how the cultural histories of body ideals have changed over time, she offers a new way to view ourselves and our health by enhancing body diversity to close the gap between what's ideal and what's real.

Fashion designers have the power to change culture -- and Becca McCharen-Tran is using her platform to expand the industry's narrow definition of beauty. Sharing highlights of her work, McCharen-Tran discusses the inspiration behind her norm-shattering designs and shows how she's celebrating beauty in all forms. "I want the consumer to know that it's not your body that needs to change -- it's the clothes," she says.

In a society obsessed with body image and marked by a fear of fat, Kelli Jean Drinkwater engages in radical body politics through art. She confronts the public's perception of bigger bodies by bringing them into spaces that were once off limits -- from fashion runways to the Sydney Festival -- and entices all of us to look again and rethink our biases. "Unapologetic fat bodies can blow people's minds," she says.

When Ashley Graham first started her modeling career, she was followed everywhere by a label she hates: "plus-size model." Defying such regressive pigeonholing, she explains how she stopped devaluing herself and reclaimed her body as her own.