“Why do people use drugs bought online?”

Holli Rubin and Pharmacologist Atholl Johnsont discuss on Sky News, why people want to use these drugs, and the impact of them.

Fifth of Brits ‘would lose finger to achieve perfect shape’

Campaigners have urged Brits to avoid fad diets this New Year as a poll showed a fifth would lose a finger in return for the perfect body.

The costs of perinatal mental health problems

On Tuesday 13th of January PiP UK organized a lecture sponsored by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA) hosted by Andrea Leadsom MP, Frank Field MP and Tim Loughton MP, opened by Dr Liz MacDonald (RCPsych) .

The lecture was called Perinatal mental health: a paradigm shift

Despite it being difficult to talk about, We have all heard about the incidence of postnatal depression. The sad stories of mothers not coping with their newborns and finding life with a baby not what they thought it would be. What we are much less aware of and as many professionals on the front line, are less adept at handling is recognizing depression during pregnancy or “Antenataly”

The presentation was stressing how important it is to recognize mothers wellbeing not just postnatally but during pregnancy. Up to 20% of women develop a mental health problem during pregnancy or within a year of giving birth. A mothers own childhood has a profound effect on whether she develops depression during or post pregnancy. A very worrying fact is that had mother been poorly treated during her own childhood (neglected childhood, alcoholism, trauma, death of a parent/sibling) and then was depressed during pregnancy, this has a strong impact on how she bonds with her baby and how baby will develop throughout childhood and adolescence.

I walked away from the House of Commons determined to help disseminate this message and help Train those already working with pregnant women and new mothers. I am currently working on developing a training program for health visitors and midwives based on a paper I co authored with Susie Orbach called “Two for the price of one”: the impact of body image during pregnancy” https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/two-for-the-price-of-one

Tallulah Willis bares all for the ‘What’s Underneath Project’

One of the aspects of my work that gives me greatest satisfaction, is when I read about a project or initiative taking place miles from home, that really resonates with my beliefs and the sense of purpose that informs all my work. As a psychotherapist and a body image specialist, I feel I have been on a 20-year journey to build awareness of the critical relationship between an individual and the physical body they inhabit. On that journey, I am from time to time frustrated when people are dismissive of physical insecurities as vain or trivial, so it is really heartening to find others around the world on a parallel mission.

This really rang true when I read last week about The What’s Underneath Project – an internet video project created by StyleLikeU founders, former fashion stylist Elisa Goodkind and her daughter, Lily Mandelbaum. The What’s Underneath Project films the simple act of women undressing to their underwear. As the women undress they are asked questions about themselves and their relationship with their body. Every individual is different, and the range of interviewees encompasses a whole spectrum of age, height, weight, disability, background, ethnicity and style. And each individual’s story is different, as they talk about how their views about their body have evolved over time, and how they have struggled, learnt and taught themselves acceptance and peace. The stories are often moving, and encourage us to reflect that the celebrity-obsessed fashion industry portrays a very singular image of beauty, which can challenge the confidence of the vast majority of us who do not conform. And it made me ask the question, when was the tipping point? When did popular culture start becoming so narrow-minded in its view of the body beautiful?

Fashion and clothes are something I personally enjoy experimenting with. Fashion has the potential to be liberating, and to make us feel unique – a positive visual reflection of what is on the inside. But it seems that the parameters of this form of self-expression have narrowed. We have fought for our liberties in other areas of life, whilst becoming hemmed in by an idealised vision of physical perfection.

I think there are some really interesting discussions to be had around our society’s versions of beauty, particularly in the context of the highly visual world in which we now live. Smart phones, digital cameras integrated into all handheld devices, photo editing packages and a vast array of social media platforms, all enable us to portray an edited and idealised visual version of our own lives. Projects like The What’s Underneath Project, make us stop and question whether all that ‘personal editing’ has a worthwhile role in our lives. And whether the quest for a highly prescribed version of perfection, will in fact contribute to our wellbeing at all. I think deep down, we all know the answer.

Elisa Goodkind and Lily Mandelbaum’s ambition is to expand their project globally, driven by the belief that greater individual self-acceptance and self-love leads to a happier, more connected world. That sounds like a journey we should all be a part of… http://stylelikeu.com/the-whats-underneath-project-2/

Do you have body confidence issues? Body insecurities ruined my life.

Are you feeling the pressure of trying to achieve an unrealistic body image? Does how you look make you feel miserable? Maybe you're worried your children feel anxious and insecure about their shape and appearance and you don't know what to do.

Body image specialists Holli Rubin and Natasha Devon are here to take our viewers' questions, queries and worries.

Why is Body Confidence Worthy of a Public Health Campaign?

Why is Body Confidence Worthy of a Public Health Campaign?

If you ask me, I’ve been on my own body confidence campaign for over 35 years – long before the term had entered the public consciousness and well before awareness grew of the link between body confidence and maintaining a healthy relationship with food. I am very excited to have witnessed how we as a society are beginning to change and notice how important body confidence is in living our lives more freely.

The Government-backed Body Confidence Week is set to take place next week, October 13th-17th 2014. One of Body Confidence Week’s initiatives is an Awards event recognizing brands, organizations and individuals who have positively contributed to healthy body image. The Body Confidence Awards will take place on October 16th at The House of Commons, hosted by Caroline Nokes MP who has chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image that I am part of, for the past few years. The very fact that there is an entire week dedicated to body confidence, demonstrates the importance and gravity of this topic today.

I was asked to be a member of a panel to judge the nominees for The Body Confidence Awards. As I sat in a room with other experts representing organizations all involved with body image and it’s impacts, like Girl Guiding UK, UKactive, Central YMCA, Unilever and The Centre for Appearance Research, we all tried to articulate what exactly we wanted the Awards to represent. In comparison with the 2012 event, which was Body Confidence Award’s first year, the amount of nominees and panel experts have grown by more than 50%. This all demonstrates the growing momentum behind the Body Confidence movement. People are waking up to the critical role it plays in the disruption of healthy living.

Body Image is a complex phenomenon and affects us all on so many different levels.
At first glance, we are our bodies.
We are evaluated on what we look like in that moment in time.
We are who we appear to be.
But what happens when we connect or engage with someone? There is another opportunity to get to know beyond or beneath appearance. That requires time and in our “time poor” lives, this proves challenging. We are bombarded by visual imagery and are forced to make judgements instantaneously. It is where we are seeing men and women, boys and girls portrayed in very unrealistic terms…
So… if you do not fit the very narrow beauty ideal well… too bad! Out goes the job, the date, the opportunity, the account!

Well that is how it used to be but actually we have found a way around that too. If you don’t fit, you can change that! Once again Technology has facilitated this and through our smart phones we can all be the masters of our own trickery as we photoshop our pictures to fit more with what we think others want to see, never minding what we actually feel about how we look.
Is changing how we look the answer? For whom are we making these changes? Hopefully, through public awareness, we are beginning to widen the beauty ideal to include more than our current stereotype- of 5’10 blond, 26’ inch waist… because I have a secret to share with you and I want you to share this secret… the average size in the UK is a 16!!!.This is a secret because there is shame around that number, that size. Shame because it does not fit with the fashion industry’s warped perception of who they are dressing. That is why All Walks Beyond the Catwalk exists to disband these myths by rewriting the Fashion curriculum and changing the thinking of big business to incorporate a variety of mannequin sizes to realistically represent the people buying their clothing. That is what Susie Orbach, a feminist activist and myself, a body image psychotherapist are doing by lobbying government to make them listen to what 5 year old girls are feeling when they are saying their bodies are fat. When charities like Endangered Bodies are relentlessly pushing government to help support mothers during pregnancy so they can freely attach to their babies and provide them with the security and care their lives depend on. When Shape Your Culture, an off shoot of AnyBody and Endangered Bodies is tirelessly approaching schools to engage with young girls to explore creatively who they are and how they feel about their bodies and to hook them in enough so they can become activists and change the world they live in. And it is why Dove continues to fund the self esteem project they began over 10 years ago….

This is all happening now and that for me shows that we are in a state of positive change. However, behind my door, I see parents who tell me their 13 year old daughter is fussy with food so much so that she cannot focus in school, or my client who has a 1 year old and sneaks around waiting for the nanny to leave so she can throw up in the bathroom before her husband comes home, or a woman who is still trying to get over her sons traumatic birth… 11 years ago and restricts her food believing that this will undo the guilt she has for having an emergency c-section. I can tell you that, ‘yes we are changing’ but these issues run deep and we have a long way to go.

Body Confidence is a pressing concern that we must address, so we don’t lose a handle on another generation
– so we can give women and girls their bodies to live in
– so we can learn to love food and listen to our appetites
– so we can stop punishing ourselves for not eating the right thing
– so we can begin to recognise that skinny is not a sign that all is well, the same way that obesity is a sign that all is unwell
– so we can quiet the voices in our heads and begin to live the lives we were meant to
– so we can stop wasting time and energy on the ‘achievement’ of being skinny but rather focus on the positive goal of body confidence

Body Confidence and how we feel about how we look is anything but trivial….. So on October 16th, when I am sitting in the House of Commons amongst like-minded positive Body Image advocates, I will celebrate each and every nominee and winner but more than their personal awards, I will celebrating that the platform now exists to support the change that is so desperately needed and to continue to educate people about why Body Confidence matters so much!

Miss Representation Panel

I was invited to  sit on a panel as an expert on body imagefor the screenings of Miss Representation, a powerful American documentary being screened privately and addressing the influence the media and advertising has on the self esteem of our young girls and boys.  The message of how do we ensure our children grow up feeling good about themselves when the messages they are getting is that they have to look a certain way despite it being ultimately unattainable because of all the manipulation of advertising companies and the media.  This frustration and what Selligman would call “Learned Helplessness” is rampant in the lives of many of the patients I see.  The first screening was on October 12, 2012 where I was joined on the panel by Maggie Baxter of Rosa UK, Gillian Tett, of The Financial Times, Helen Lewis of The Guardian and Ann Magalhaes facilitator at The Parent Practice.

The second screening was organized by Glendower Prep School on June 17, 2013.  On this panel I was privileged to sit with Jill Walker, The Deputy Head at Glendower, Emma Woolf writer for The Times, Grazia and The Ministry of Thin and An Apple a Day, and Deborah Joseph, editor of Condé Nast’s Easy Living. The conversation about the film and audience questions made for an enriching dialogue.

Growing up in a world where pink isn’t the only colour for girls

There’s more to life than being a princess, right? Don’t we want our girls to know that? Don’t we want them to know that life is made up of a palette of more than just pink? 

It has been a long time coming but today there are several websites working hard to show our girls there is much more to life than playing a princess. Having the choice of interesting and non-stereotyped books and toys is so refreshing, and so very necessary. Recently, we applauded Toward the Stars, but many other groundbreaking online initiatives also deserve our recognition and support.

Another standout platform is A Mighty Girl, an impressive repository of books, toys and clothing, all consciously chosen for promoting values of strength and equality. Their tag line (which I love) is:

“The world’s largest collection of books, toys and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls.” 

The website is divided into the following sections: Books, Toys, Movies/TV, Music, Clothing, Best Of, Book Club and Character Collection. The Character Collection takes all of the characters from every section on A Mighty Girl and houses them together, making it easy for parents and kids to find their favourites. The characters range from empowered princesses such as Supergirl and Princess Leia to the strong and intelligent Dora the Explorer to historical figures such as Helen Keller and Anne Frank. Personally, I loved seeing the well-known French character Madeline completely transformed as she swapped her usual uniform of a vibrant blue coat and yellow hat to become a soccer star donning a team shirt, shorts, knee pads and socks: Go, Madeline, go!!

Since your typical princess does not spend much of her time doing DIY, the Toy section, containing over 2,000 empowering selections, offers toys like Connectagons, Gears and Blokus, which help foster a love of building, encourage exposure to science and improve spatial skills. They are gender neutral, and games that girls (and mothers of girls) tend not to reach for, but if they had the opportunity to play with, would likely enjoy. (I have two older boys and in the early days, we never had any ‘girly’ things around, so my daughter loved trains and cars because that’s what was available.)

Another interesting resource is called UltraViolet, an online non-sexist guide to shopping in the 21st century. It facilitates shopping by presenting a Gift Guide, broken down into four different age groups. While staying on the theme of developing girls’ enthusiasm for maths and science, I uncovered one of my favourite products on Ultraviolet: Roominate. It’s a kit of building pieces and circuit components that a child can use to design, build, wire and decorate her very own interactive room. Products such as this one help increase young girls’ confidence and enthusiasm for maths, science and learning directly through fun hands-on play.

Yet another invaluable resource is Pigtail Pals and BallCap Buddies, the brainchild of Melissa Wardy, a mom and entrepreneur who was tired of the limited types of clothing available for children and wanted to see strong role models that would encourage and empower kids to make their own choices. The categories range from Full of Awesome Shop to Colors Are for Everyone Tees. PigTail Pals has also partnered up with another excellent online resource, New Moon Girls, selling “girl-centered art” in the New Moon Girls’ Shop.

New Moon Girls is an ad-free supportive global community allowing girls (8 years old and up) the opportunity to express themselves creatively. It aims to help them explore the world conciously and teaches them to develop empathy and self-assurance. There is a fully-moderated online chat room, Luna’s Chatterbox, which makes it a safe place for supportive learning and fun. In a high-tech society children can end up on many unsafe sites so it is great to know that New Moon exists. My favourite section is called Girl Caught, which encourages activism by asking girls to differentiate inappropriate adverts, which are circled in red, from the respectful and empowering adverts, which are circled in green. Comments on all the ads are made by the young readers themselves.

Two other online resources are HearthSong and the Golden Apple Learning Store. HearthSong is committed to helping parents choose playthings they’ll “feel good about giving”. Categories include Outdoor Active, Imaginative Play, Playful Apparel and Beyond Toys. The Golden Apple Learning Store offers a wide selection of low-tech and no-tech learning materials and toys which help to promote early brain development and early learning.

Last but not least is She Heroes, which “tells the stories of extraordinary women who are role models in diverse careers.” Additionally, this U.S.-based non-profit provides various resources for middle school-aged children and their parents that can be used to inspire future career paths for both girls and boys, as well as to foster and strengthen media literacy skills.

Are there any other girl-positive online initiatives you would add to this list? Let us know in the comment section below.

For additional information about empowering resources for kids, check out Pink Stinks, an award-winning UK-based “campaign that targets the products, media and marketing that prescribe heavily stereotyped and limiting roles to young girls.”

From my Endangered Bodies blog

Pregnancy: A Message for Mothers-to-be

I wrote a review in the form of a blog post called Pregnancy: A Message for Mothers-to-be which can be found on www.any-body.org. I am often frustrated by the ideals that society has imposed on pregnant women.  I wanted for my patients who are new mothers, sleep deprived and thrust into a world foreign to their previous existence, to have their experience of motherhood normalized and not idealized.

Premier of “I Want to Change my Body”

I Attended the premier of BBC 3’s first show of The Body Beautiful Season screening of  “I want to change my Body”directed by Sam Emmery.  Ultimately the question the documentary was were asking was “whether making changes to your body can bring you happiness”.  As this is a common theme that comes up in the individual work I do with patients, I was curious to see how it would be portrayed in this documentary.  I wrote a review on it which was posted on Anybody UK website.

“Ugly Girl” Interview in the Independent!

I was Interviewed by Laura Bates of The Independent for an article entitled “Ugly Girl”.  A young girl of 15 wrote in to describe how she feels about herself based on how she looks.

Unfortunately, she is representative of huge numbers of teenage girls as well as women, suffering from the ideas and the pressure society puts on them to conform to a very narrow media defined ideal of appearance.  Laura Bates asked me to comment on the prevalence of this problem and the impact it has on women.  This is a huge social issue we are all facing today but there are ways we can help stop the spread of these damaging messages.

Official screening of the documentary “Centrefold” sponsored by the Welcome Trust!

I attended this controversial documentary created by Ellie Land about female genital cosmetic surgery which has increased by 500%. This is a very serious topic as women are feeling the need to have surgery without understanding the true nature of their bodies.  The film encouraged informed debate and discussion around why women feel the need to change how they look when how they look is exactly as they should.  The panel included Dr Phil Hammond, Ellie Land the director of centerfold, Sarah Creighton a consultant gynecologists, Lih-Mei Liao a consultant clinical psychologist work together to address the fact that elective surgery for appearance sake is  “psychology by proxy” and  Dr. Susie Orbach who is a psychoanalyst and writer and convener of Anybody, an organization campaigning for body diversity.

This project interested me from the standpoint of people’s beliefs that if they change physically they will feel better about themselves. This may or may not happen.  I believe that with any elective surgery, it is important to explore the reasons why.  Often there are other reasons and a deeper level of dissatisfaction with some aspect of a person’s life that might be better  explored first, in the context of therapy, before undergoing surgery.