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BodyKind Schools

Butterfly Foundation

BodyKind Schools addresses factors influencing negative body image, disordered eating and the development of eating disorders in young people.

  • Online
  • ACT
  • NSW
  • QLD
  • SA
  • Vic

Availability is confined to specific regions. Contact the provider to check availability in your region.

Pricing: Free, Paid

Origin: Developed in Australia for Australian schooling contexts

Product type: Posters; Fact sheets; Online resources (e.g. videos, games, tools, readings); Activity sheets; Student activities; Professional learning; Presentation by an expert or speaker ; Whole school approach or initiative

Contact details

Butterfly Foundation
ABN: 42 102 193 582

https://butterfly.org.au/school-youth-professionals/about-our-programs/

education@butterfly.org.au

Focus areas

  • Self-esteem and body image

Curriculum alignment

  • Health and PE

Prospective users

Audience: Whole school universal (Tier 1)

Context: School or centre-based

Main beneficiaries: Year 5, Year 6, Year 7, Year 8, Year 9, Year 10, Year 11, Year 12

Delivery style: Delivered by program staff

Aims & approach

BodyKind Schools provides specialised workshops, presentations, resources and awareness activities for secondary schools. The stragegies are strength-based, age appropriate, evidence-informed, mapped to the Australian Curriculum and take a whole-school approach. There is a strong focus on 'do no harm' and help-seeking for self and others.

BodyKind Schools programs for students, staff and parents focus on:

  • Modifiable risk and protective factors underpinning body dissatisfaction and eating disorders
  • Promoting healthy attitudes and behaviours towards the body, eating and physical activity
  • Building resilience
  • Reducing stigma
  • Encouraging early identification and help seeking
  • Creating a school environment which supports young people to be kind to their own body and to others.

BodyKind Schools offers a mixture of face-to-face facilitated sessions, school-led programs, a digital e-learning program (BodyKind Online Education) and free online resources as part of BodyKind August.

Student presentations, professionals trainings and parent seminars are facilitated by Butterfly trained staff in metro Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra. Schools and participants are directed to further freely available Butterfly resources, activities and guidance.

Implementation support

  • Access to professional facilitator, instructor or mentor
  • Ongoing helpdesk, email or phone support

Evidence

BodyKind Education adopts an aetiological approach to prevention focusing on identifying and preventing salient, modifiable risk factors for the development of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. BodyKind Education is framed around the widely endorsed socio-cultural model of body image which emphasises the role of appearance pressures from media, family and peers (Rodgers, 2016). The program also addresses the modifiable aspects of the biopsychological model of body image, specifically challenging internalised appearance ideals and weight bias, body comparisons and improving self-esteem.

A rapid review into prevention and early intervention in eating disorders found universal prevention programs such as multi-risk factor school-based programs have high acceptability and can be beneficial for children and adolescents independent of their risk status (Koreshe et al., 2023).

BodyKind Education facilitators are trained to deliver aspects of their lived experience in a safe and engaging way, in line with growing evidence for contact education in reducing stigma and promoting help seeking in youth populations (Chen et al., 2016).

In addition to being informed by evidence and expert consensus, content has also been developed with oversight from Emeritus Professor Susan Paxton, renowned body image researcher and former Butterfly Board Member, and Dr Zali Yager.

An evaluation of our programs (for young people, parents and professionals) delivered on a community-wide base in South Australia showed positive increase on all knowledge, confidence and intended actions measurements. Pre and post evaluation of our professional development programs in 2023 shows positive increases in all measures.