Love Your Body Month: February 2012

The Rice University Wellness Center Love Your Body Month is a month-long education and outreach program whose goal is to increase awareness of healthy body image around campus and educate the student body about healthy eating, exercise, and lifestyle habits. There is also a focus on increasing acceptance of different body types and to express satisfaction with one’s own healthiest body. By having numerous types of programs throughout that month, the program reaches different subgroups and populations on Rice campus. This month-long initiative takes place every year throughout the month of February, consisting of events dedicated to increasing body awareness and raising levels of self-esteem while learning how to treat your body well. Each week throughout the month focuses on a different objective related to healthy living and improving body image 

Week 1: Nutrition Week Kick-Off  

Rate the Plate - Rice University dietician Maria Tsakalis will come to your college serveries to discuss eating healthfully and ditching the diet mentality to help you feel better mentally, physically, and emotionally. Stop by her table for her to rate your meal and get some great tips on how to stock up on some nutritional benefits in your own servery. This event will take place at lunch twice during the Nutrition week at one north college and one south college location.

Mindful Eating Focus Group - Rice University dietician Maria Tsakalis will facilitate a focus group dedicated to mindful eating techniques and improving your relationship with food. This group is designed to encourage anybody who has issues with food or just wants to learn how to eat healthier. This one-hour session will be an accelerated version of the Wellness Center’s four-week Mindful Eating Group program, which will encourage more students to participate. 

Week 2: Mind and Body Week  

Yoga on the Lawn - Join a professional yoga instructor for a rejuvenating yoga practice focusing on loving and caring for your body. Bring a yoga mat (or beach towel) if you have one. No need to RSVP—just show up. 

Love Your Body Yoga Session - This 30-minute guided yoga session is promotes peaceful body image to heal us from the inside out. This yoga session is designed to heal the body and free it from negative messages, leading us to peace and serenity.  This yoga session is great for beginners. The event will take place in the Wellness Center in a dim, candle-lit room so that participants can be more comfortable and at ease with their bodies.  

Nirvana Sessions - Each week, the Wellness Center hosts three 20-minute Nirvana sessions to help decrease tension and stress and increase relaxation and concentration. During this week, the guided imagery sessions and the meditation session guided by a licensed, mindfulness-meditation instructor will be focused on promoting healthy body image and healthy weight loss. These sessions will take place at their normal time slots in the Rice Memorial Chapel.  

Week 3: Revitalize Week  

Revitalize Day - Drop by the Wellness Center for a free massage, make yourself a valentine, take some aromatherapy, and just chill out with some hot tea or cocoa in a relaxing environment. You can even treat yourself to a healthy dessert! Take this opportunity for some down time and focus on revitalizing your body. This event is open to all students—men, women, grads, and undergrads—so bring your friends.  

Miss Representation Screening - Take some time off for the evening and come into the Wellness Center for a relaxing study break with an interesting movie, yummy snacks, and lively discussion. The Wellness Center, in collaboration with the Women’s Resource Center, will show the critically acclaimed documentary, Miss Representation, a film that exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women’s value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality. This event will not only provide students with a time to relax, but it should also promote awareness and discussion of taboo issues.  

Week 4: Love Your Body Week  

Heart Your Parts Day - This campus-wide initiative will promote confidence and boost self-esteem. On this day, students are encouraged to place a heart-shaped sticker or temporary tattoo (or more than one!) on the parts of their body they love the most. Sometimes the smallest effort can make a huge impact. **If you are interested in helping spread the word about this event and become a Heart Your Parts representative in your own college, email Cristina Barrera (cbb2@rice.edu) for more information** 

Chalk the Quad - Come out and raise awareness of body image and spread messages of hope and positivity all throughout the sidewalk areas of the Academic Quad. The purpose of this event is to combat hateful body image dialogue and to dispel negative thoughts and views about one’s body. Bring a smile to someone’s face and brighten someone’s day with a positive uplifting message in colorful chalk. 

Love Your Body Monologues - This event is our grand finale! Love Your Body Monologues is based on Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues and is an evening of prose, poetry, film, and discussion dedicated to body image and loving your body. What makes LYBM unique is that all monologue authors are affiliated with Rice. Some monologues are touching and serious, others are funny or satirical. Though anonymous they all come from someone on this campus. Past topics have included media obsession with body size and shape, pressure as an athlete to have a certain body type, eating disorders, listing all of the ways to love your own body, and being fat and proud of it!  

The Monologues took place in the Duncan College Commons and was well attended by Rice students, faculty, and staff. Below is a list of the 2012 performers:

• Kay McStay, “Earth Goddess on Campus”
• Chloe Nguyen, “The Red Jacket” by Sui Solitaire
• Kaio Ferreira, “Teeth” by Benjamin Cuthrell
• Janet Schwartz, “Anorexic Thoughts” by Caroline Turner
• Morgan Sutter, “Untitled” by Amber Nadeau
• Molly Cisneros, “Perfect” by Anonymous
• Daniel Burns, “Real Girls” by Anonymous
• Aryn Neurock, “Untitled” by Rachel Peterson
• KC Ho, “Unititled” by Anonymous
• Hilary Koo, “Learning to Live, Learning to Love, and Learning to Let Go”
• Marie Chatfield, “The Dance”
• Annie Zeumer (Director), Concluding Remarks

Video recordings of the live performances of the 2012 Monologues (parts 1-12) can be found HERE. 

  On Chalk The Quad Day, students are encouraged to write positive and inspiring messages in the Academic Quad 

This year, since Revitalize Day was the day before Valentine’s Day, the Wellness Center provided all of the necessary tools to make valentines during a screening of “Juno.” 

Students took advantage of the free massages offered at the Wellness Center during this spring’s Revitalize Day. 

Wiess freshman Marie Chatfield demonstrates how dance has taught her to appreciate her body in her performance at the 2012 Love Your Body Monologues.