Mum's outrage after school offers free shapewear to year 8 students
By Merryn Porter |
Ensuring your child grows up with a healthy body image can be hard at the best of times, which is why it is so important to ensure they are surrounded with positive messaging.
But a mum in the US has seen red after a letter came home from her daughter's high school offering to supply female students with shapewear and lingerie - under the guise of promoting "positive body image".
Ashley Heun took to Twitter this week to share her disgust after she received the letter from her daughter's Mississippi school, which incredulously, was written by school counsellors.
READ MORE: COVID-positive mum-to-be under fire over 'ignorant' baby shower
"This is what was sent home with my 8th grade daughter at Southaven Middle School," she began. "All girls were sent home with this letter. I'm appalled at the fact that they are trying to fix 'negative body image' by sending home SHAPEWEAR!"
The letter, which was headed "Why do girls suffer from body image?" started, "Body image is a perception of one's body, and simultaneously, a measure of one's attractiveness" before continuing: "Female body image is a product of personal, social and cultural experiences, and often emerges as a desire to adhere to an 'deal' body shape".
The letter said girls were more likely than boys to have a negative body image because many women "feel pressured to measure up to strict and unrealistic social and cultural beauty ideals", while and girls with a positive body image were "more likely to have a good physical and mental health".
It said girls who had "negative thoughts and feelings about their bodies" were "more likely to develop certain mental health conditions, such as eating disorders and depression", while negative body image could lead to a girl developing low self-esteem and obsess about how much she eats or exercises.
READ MORE:?Mum reveals colour change in breastmilk after contracting COVID
It continued: "We can take steps to help our girls develop a healthier body image. We would like to have the opportunity to offer some healthy literature to your daughter on maintaining a positive body image. We are also providing shapewear, bras and other health products".
At the bottom of the letter was a permission slip where parents could select the size of the shapewear and bras they would like provided to their daughters.
Heun also took to her Facebook page to say she was "beyond p---ed at the fact the school "had the balls" to send home the letter, and singled out the "ignorance of the counsellors at the school".
"What the very f---," she raged. "How in the hell are you promoting a positive body image by saying 'Here, you're too fat. You need shapewear to make you look thinner. Are you freaking kidding me?", before warning the matter "isn't over".
Social media erupted since Ashley's posts, with people appalled at the school's note.
"I'd be FURIOUS," said one.
"Unacceptable and in no way should this have ever been thought up from the word go," added another.
The program has since been cancelled after Huen and several other parents complained - with the school claiming that they had received a donation of bras, underwear and shapewear, and formulated the program as a way to use them.
"While I know they had good intentions, it was just very ill-conceived," Heun told USA Today.
For a daily dose of 9Honey, subscribe to our newsletter here
