On Friday 28th July at 1 pm in London I shall be taking part in the first ever Body Love Flash-mob organised by Body Gossip. For those of you who have never heard of Body Gossip, it is a positive body image campaign run by the wonderful Ruth Rogers & Natasha Devon who work endlessly to banish body shame and encourage everyone to be the best version of themselves (no cover versions here.) I talk about them here, here and here.
I was first inspired by Body Gossip after coming across a video on you tube called 'This one is For You.' It was a poem written by a young woman with anorexia and amongst other things was what started me on my journey of discovery and writing. It has taken me a very long time to really appreciate myself for who I am as a person, and possibly even longer to see past the physical imperfections that I, like many others, may have focused on. Body bashing can seriously damage your self esteem, so can full length mirrors and communal changing rooms!!!
Body Gossip are actively doing something to stop this. They are showing the great British public that you can be proud of who you are, no excuses, just un-apologetically you!
Since 2006 Body Gossip have made many other videos, been on TV with Gok Wan himself, published a book containing body stories from the general public as well as celebs, brought out their own range of 'rocking' T-Shirts and now the Flash-Mob.
Why a Flash-Mob you may ask?
Well, Body Gossip are asking us to write on a heart,the name of a part of our body that we love,and show it to the world through twitter and facebook. This is a statement to show all those companies, magazines, who for financial gain constantly make us feel we are not good enough, not thin enough, not young enough, not firm enough that actually, yes we are enough....... because we are who we are, we are individuals, we are beautiful and we are unique. To quote Natasha Devon, we 'rock our own brand of gorgeous.'
So on Friday, I shall be joining a lot of other gorgeous people and I will be shouting out that I love my Bum :)
Why don't you join me and fight back against body shame. Say yes to Body Love.
