Public schools withhold an array of responsibilities for children, they are responsible for the most vulnerable stage of a human’s life. The way these responsibilities are handled can make or break an individual’s self esteem and success rate in the future, this is why one of the most vulnerable topics have to be fixated on more by the department of education, principles, and teachers; this topic being how public schools can input their own help to prevent body image issues. This topic can be heavily correlated to how the department of education handles certain preventable causes. These causes can be controlled, and restrained better by public schools. My main appeals towards decreasing body image issues will be, mandating mental-health curricula early on is important in the development of positive outlooks in adolescence, educating students on effects of social media make students more self aware, and that youth mental health services are known to increase positive attitude towards body image in adolescence– who have already been affected by negative perception of their own bodies.
The first text that I will be introducing is titled, Body Dysmorphia and Anxiety, the Invisible Experience We Can’t Ignore by Starr Sackstein. Sackstein is a secondary educator and school leader in New York. She shared her story on how her and her family have struggled with body dysmorphic disorder, the expectation to stay thin due to being an athlete and upkeeping what she knew to be the beauty standard damaged her of course. Although intellectually she knew that she was thin, she could still find areas of her body that she did not like- and fixated on them for hours. With no help she stayed in the same rut for years and years to come. Sackstein blames the lack of awareness in her school as well as lack in empathy from teachers, and an overall lack of mental health curricula in her public school’s contributed have been a main contribution to her being in more of a toxic environment which led to her failing to realize that she has even had body dysmorphia until she was an adult. Disorders created by the anxiety of upholding a “standard” that roughly translates to “how much someone is worth” are the downfall of society’s education systems. Such disorders can ruin someone’s outlook on other peers, quality of schoolwork, and increase bullying rates. Sackstein not only has shown us her own experience on low self esteem correlated with body image of herself, but she has shown us that a lack of empathy in the school system has affected many other people as well. Public schools hold big responsibility in the contribution of creating a mentally well safe space for struggling students. Sackstein states, “When a person tells you how they feel, please don’t ever dismiss it and try to listen without judgment. The work it takes to overcome anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia is great, and it is something that most will struggle with their whole lives to varying degrees. Stress can exacerbate the issue, so be sensitive to those you work with.” Stress exacerbates mental health issues, it is crucial for public schools to take more action in making sure that anxiety disorders don’t arise, or worsen. Her entire article is based on how her environment has affected her.
Alana Papageorgiou, had a similar approach to this issue. Although the text Sexualized Images on Social Media and Adolescent Girls’ Mental Health: Qualitative Insights from Parents, School Support Service Staff and Youth Mental Health Service Providers, mentions body image and mental health that are correlated with school- the school is not to blame. Papageorgiou collected qualitative data to prove the effects of social media on children of any age, and mentioned the help and awareness that mental health services in schools have provided for struggling students. She stated that “Adolescence is a developmental period critical to identity formation, with considerable physical, social, cognitive, and emotional changes. For adolescents in today’s digital age, the online environment including social media plays a central role in how they socialize and connect with peers and form their identity and sense of self . Social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok focus on users creating and sharing photos and videos that enable instant social interaction” like what’s said in the first text, the student’s environment is a main contributor to identity and cognitive formation. Schools that provide knowledge on these effects can prevent the likelihood of this happening further. Participants in the mental health services in an Australian school also explained how they perceived that ‘counteracting negative influences’ from sexualized images on social media could reduce or even prevent the potential for mental health harms among young people. The importance of adults and services ‘keeping up to date’ and being ‘approachable and trustworthy’ when describing the support they believed girls might need. Mental health services have shown us that they are helpful in helping issues related to body image.
From Papageorgiou’s findings, and Sackstein’s experience- it has been proven that schools can prevent or decrease the likelihood of anxiety disorders or other mental health disorders that originate or get worsened by toxic environments. Adolescence is the most malleable period of anyone’s life, and the most sensitive. Sackstein mentioned how schools do not do enough to give their time to check in or be sympathetic on the mental health of students; she mentions how important it is to not ignore the obvious and how much it would have helped her live a happier life. Papageorgiou’s findings from various interviews with adolescent girls, and their parents about social media and their daughters mental health have resulted in parents realizing that makeup, fashion, and beauty accounts on instagram have had negative effects on their daughter. The school gave the parents a sense of awareness and more knowledge on the topic of how social media can negatively affect a teen girl’s view on their body. With mental health services like occupational therapists, mental health clinical workers, and youth services like the ones in Perth, Western Australia- situations like Sackstein are bound to be less prominent.
Source 1-
Body Dysmorphia and Anxiety, the Invisible Experience We Can’t Ignore
By Starr Sackstein
Source 2-
Sexualized Images on Social Media and Adolescent Girls’ Mental Health: Qualitative Insights from Parents, School Support Service Staff and Youth Mental Health Service Providers- Alana Papageorgiou