Embrace Kids
Helping 1 million children embrace their bodies in 2023.
This year, we’re helping 1 million Australian school children learn how to embrace their bodies. Here’s how.
Embrace Kids Classroom Program
The Embrace Kids Classroom Program brings the best of the EMBRACE KIDS film to every school in Australia - for free. Two separate but aligned programs have been developed: one for Year 5 & 6 students, and another for Year 7 & 8 students, as these are the ages at which universal prevention is likely to be most effective (Yager et al., 2013). The program includes five lesson plans, clips from the EMBRACE KIDS film and associated classroom activities, all planned out with curriculum alignment, slides and worksheets provided for teachers to implement the program. The five lessons are modular, offer flexible pedagogical opportunities, and are intended to be delivered without the need for additional teacher training, in order to reduce barriers to implementation. Activities are based on the emerging evidence regarding the potential for self compassion, appreciation of body functionality, and celebrating diversity as strategies that can improve body image and wellbeing.
Body Blocks by Embrace Kids
Body Blocks by Embrace Kids is a groundbreaking new program for early childhood educators that aims to prevent body image issues in young people by getting in early with messages of body appreciation.
It’s the world’s first publicly available, broadly disseminated body image program for early childhood educators, and empowers young children to develop positive relationships with food, movement and their bodies from the very beginning of their lives.
The program was developed by paediatric dietitian Dr Lyza Norton and a team of body image experts based on the latest research, including the research that informed the Confident Body, Confident Child program led by Dr Laura Hart from The University of Melbourne.
Embrace Sport Playbook
The Embrace Sport Playbook is a free and practical guide designed to promote better body image within community sports across Australia. It specifically aims to support parents, coaches and administrators to create sporting club cultures to prevent young people dropping out of sports and other physical activity because they feel judgement, shame and embarrassment about their bodies within their sport.
The Playbook is based on research in the area of body image, sport and physical activity, drawn together by Dr Angela Hinz, Lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast, and Dr Zali Yager, Adjunct Associate Professor at the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University.
EMBRACE KIDS film
EMBRACE KIDS is a film for 9-14 year olds and their teachers, parents and carers. It aims to educate and inspire audiences to create a world where we are not held back by the thoughts we have about the way we look. Eighteen incredible kids and lots of inspirational role models, including Celeste Barber, Chloe Hayden, Amy Sheppard and Electric Fields, encourage the audience to figure out what makes them unique and special, and use that to spark change. The film utilises role modelling of adaptive body image responses, media literacy, vicarious inter-group contact, counter-stereotypical content and counter-attitudinal advocacy to promote compassion towards self and others. These approaches align with best practice, research, and theoretical frameworks regarding effective approaches for improving body image in young people.
ACTIVATE by Embrace
Our ACTIVATE by Embrace youth events aim to engage young people in activities and advocacy, to empower them to create change in school, sport, peer and online settings. We plan to run this program in each state of Australia, where we will invite a diverse range of young people (12 years +) from across the state to join a high energy full-day event. On the day, they will view the EMBRACE KIDS film and engage in activities to support them to fuel, move, and be kind to themselves and their bodies, while empowering them to become real role models. These young people will then take the Embrace Kids resources back to their communities, where they can lead change for hundreds of other young people. This place-based, youth-led approach to health promotion is increasingly recognised as effective and appropriate in advancing the health and wellbeing of Australians and allows for the dissemination of evidence-based materials in culturally adapted ways that meet communities where they are at.
Key themes
-
OUR FOCUS
The Embrace Kids resources utilises content about visible difference, disability, neurodiversity, and non-binary or gender fluid young people in order to enhance representation of diversity on the screen, and help young people feel safe and seen.
-
OUR FOCUS
In our programs, we incorporate developmentally appropriate activities derived from the efficacious Expand Your Horizons Program (Alleva et al., 2015).
-
OUR FOCUS
In our programs, we empower young people to respond to themselves with self compassion as a strategy to reduce the negative impact of social media comparisons, and provide resources for young people to continue to practice self compassion, which becomes a more automatic response over time.
-
OUR FOCUS
We adopt a social norms approach to encourage adolescents to take charge of their social media engagement, and be the boss of their algorithm, to exert some more control over the content they see, which is likely to lead to less triggering exposure on social media (Mahon et al., in preparation).
The Embrace Hub
Engaging, evidence-informed body image resources for students, parents and teachers.