Christina Miranda, co-founder of the Body Empowerment Project. Miranda is a co-founder of the Penn student chapter of Project HEAL , Help to Eat Accept and Live, and was president for two years.

Moreno also served in several key leadership roles. The club sponsors eating disorder awareness efforts, educational workshops, and body-positivity campaigns on campus. They say the pandemic was the catalyst for them to expand their work to reach high school students, as eating disorders spiked among teens during quarantine.

The pair completed facilitator trainings and worked with the team to create a virtual format for a pilot program. The pilot proposal went through three extensive reviews: one each by the Penn and CHOP institutional review boards, and another by the School District of Philadelphia.

Miranda and Moreno then led the Be Body Positive Philly workshops virtually with 18 high school students in two schools last spring, Kensington Health Sciences Academy and Paul Robeson High School.

Watts is also a principal investigator on the research study, along with C. They are engaged, they are optimistic, and they are strategic. With the Prize funding in hand and working out of their Center City apartment, the pair first focused on incorporating into a nonprofit, with pro bono help from a lawyer and an accountant, successfully becoming a charitable tax-exempt organization.

Moreno built a website and Miranda set up social media channels. And they worked to identify schools for expansion, which ended up being easier than they expected. It made us feel like we wanted to expand this program as soon as possible.

Sayre High School, West Philadelphia High School, Girard Academic Music Program, Kensington High School, and Mastery Charter-Shoemaker Campus. This semester they added the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, and the first middle school, also at Mastery Charter-Shoemaker.

They plan to introduce their program in elementary schools this year, ultimately reaching students across all primary and secondary education levels. The other challenge was to recruit current Penn students as facilitators to teach the workshops.

The pair brought on a diversity, equity, and inclusion chair, fellow Penn graduate Jennie Vyas , and reached out to various cultural and affinity groups on campus. The facilitators completed 30 hours of training on the curriculum as well as on diversity-equity-inclusion issues, trauma-informed practice, and information about the Philadelphia schools and neighborhoods.

Penn sophomore Ashley Acevedo, a neuroscience major and Hispanic studies minor from Philadelphia, is a pre-med student interested in adolescent medicine and eating disorder assessment and treatment in part because she struggled with her body image as a teen.

Sophomore Randy Bach, from San Diego, learned about the opportunity through Project HEAL. Amanda Moreno, co-founder of the Body Empowerment Project.

Bach is executive director of the student-run Penn Appétit magazine, an emergency medical technician, and a Penn Medicine research assistant. Miranda and Moreno recruited and trained additional facilitators over winter break, so there are enough to place three at each school, ensuring two will be in each classroom while also allowing Penn students flexibility in their schedules.

The other important effort was recruiting high school students to participate. Miranda and Moreno went to all of the designated schools in the fall to explain the program, speaking in classes and hanging out with students in the cafeteria at lunchtime. To ensure parents understood the program, they created videos to go along with the forms for the spring enrollment, with Miranda speaking in English and Moreno in Spanish.

Penn student facilitators took part in spring recruitment. In the fall, students in seven high schools were enrolled, and this spring, are enrolled in the eight high schools, including nearly 20 in the middle school. Workshop groups range from 12 to 30 students, and facilitators break classes into smaller clusters for activities.

Each semester starts and ends with the students completing a survey to track changes in eating disorder symptoms and body appreciation. Testimonials by the students speak of the value of the conversations and connections.

Many women are now ready to accept that a healthy body is the right body type. Healthy eating habits such as clean eating, which is more of a lifestyle change than just a simple diet, has made major shifts into understanding the value of eating well and following a fitness regime to feel stronger from the inside.

Clean eating diet allows you to make good eating decisions and divides your daily meal plan into smaller meals. Clean eating is all about eating the right food, such as wholesome food, fibre-rich food, vegetable, protein, vitamins, antioxidants, omega fatty acid and cutting on processed, refined and fast food.

Hydration and reducing stress is essential part of clean eating, so forgoing fizzy carbonated sugary drinks and caffeine is important. Clean eating can help you lose weight in the healthiest manner and it doesn't work overnight.

It's a lifestyle change with a holistic approach of eating healthy and timely meals with a daily workout regime. The benefits go beyond just weight loss; this lifestyle diet will keep you healthy, have more energy, boost your metabolism.

You will have healthy skin, hair and vital organs. Exercise is a major part of a person's daily life, since in this diet, you will consume a balanced eating plan, you will have a forte for enthusiastic workout routine. I was a skinny kid, and was constantly bullied for my skinny figure back in the '90s.

I was called malnourished, a stick, and various other comments from everyone around who would always advise me to eat more. Whereas I was an energetic, hyper young girl and ate well, but maybe burned more by my daily activities. The scenario changed when I was diagnosed with PCOS and this made me gain more in my pregnancies and also develop gestational diabetes.

After my second child, I knew I had to do something about my weight, not because I hated being fat, but because it hampered my mobility mostly. I was bloated all the time and digestion was impaired too.

That time, I used to get useless comments from here and there. The body shaming was different this time, as it was more fat-shaming. But that wasn't bothering me more than my unhealthy lifestyle was, like waking up late, not working out, eating fried refined food.

I had to find a sustainable approach for my healthy lifestyle choice and not just a diet. Around the same time, I stumbled across clean eating lifestyle which I found manageable.

Adopting this, I knew my weight wouldn't just drop overnight. I lost 9 kg in one year and now, I am eating well, working out daily to maintain my healthy body and to strengthen my core body. I am more concerned about my overall wellbeing, mental and physical strength so that I can keep my family healthy and that gives me the empowerment I deserve.

I believe people should cherish their bodies by eating right and have a daily workout routine to redefine the unrealistic body image in themselves and in others by bestowing that healthy body is the perfect body.

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