Get to know: Body Empowerment Project

From a young age, we teach children important lessons like telling the truth, working hard in school, and treating others the way they would want to be treated. However, we have yet to establish a shared narrative around one’s relationship with body image. We sat down with Clara Pritchett, Executive Director of the Body Empowerment Project, about the critical role body acceptance and self-worth play in young people’s lives and what’s being done to challenge some of the harmful narratives being fed to our youth.

Read on to learn about the life-saving work being done locally by our grantee partner, Body Empowerment Project.

Following our commitment to equity in grant-making and in direct response to input from our community partners, WOMEN’S WAY launched the General Operating Fund in 2022 to provide unrestricted, 2-year grants to organizations primarily serving women, girls, and/or the gender-expansive community. You can learn more about the grant program here.

WOMEN’S WAY: Tell me more about the Body Empowerment Project.

Clara Pritchett: Body Empowerment Project (BEP) aims to reduce the risk of eating disorders among adolescents and promote positive mental health outcomes through evidence-based, preventative programming. Focused on serving marginalized youth in underserved communities, BEP empowers participants to build resilience, self-esteem, and advocacy skills while discussing systemic inequities that impact body image, mental health, and broader social determinants of health. By embedding our programming in schools and trusted community spaces, we are creating a healthier, more equitable future for Philadelphia’s youth.

We have a 10-week program, as well as one-time programs and shorter-term programs for sites that do not have the capacity to take on a full program. We’ve reached, in total, about 2,250 kids across 29 partner sites that include mostly public schools, as well as other community sites. We’ve partnered with Project HOME’s college access program and with Lanzando Lideres program, which also runs our programming within their sites. We’ve done research on our program that shows it significantly decreases eating disorder risk and increases body appreciation among our participants!

With the youth groups that you’re working with, how early do you find that children begin questioning their self-worth?

We know that by age two, kids have an understanding that, in our world, being fat is considered a bad thing and that they shouldn’t be fat. By age eight, about half of girls have attempted to be on a diet, and that goes up to 80% by age 10. There are high rates of body dissatisfaction among younger kids, and it’s only getting higher. From 2020 to 2022, eating disorders in children under 12 rose by 119%. It’s historic how young people really have a negative perception of themselves and their bodies.

Does the presence of social media work in your mission’s favor or to your detriment?

I think it works both ways. We discuss this very openly with our students — what they like and don’t like about social media. It’s interesting to hear directly from them about what they get out of it. We’re also a team of young people and have near-peer mentors who have grown up with social media, so having that direct understanding and being able to talk about it with students after having experienced it ourselves is really helpful.

Social media perpetuates unrealistic body standards, and we see “health advice” that can be detrimental to a child’s health and self-image. There is also pro-anorexia and pro-ED (eating disorder) content that exists online. But, social media is also a space to connect with people from different backgrounds and to see people who have shared experiences that they may not see in their own communities. It was Eating Disorder Awareness Week a couple of weeks ago, and someone commented on our post saying, “I have been struggling, and I didn’t even know that Eating Disorder Awareness Week was a thing.” So it can be helpful for many reasons, but it definitely has major cons.

What’s the benefit of the near-peer mentorship model?

The near-peer mentorship model has been proven through various research studies to be an effective way to deliver health-based curriculum to kids. We use 18 to 25-year-old young adults who have shared experiences with the students we work with. This might include a history of body image issues, eating disorders, or low self-esteem. We also emphasize recruiting people who are local and attended the same schools as our students. We prioritize people of color and queer individuals, because that’s the primary demographic we’re working with. They can have conversations with students that other adults in their lives may not be able to have. Our near-peer mentors are people that students can look up to; someone who has been where they are not that long ago.

Are the students you work with always ready to talk openly about such sensitive topics?

The great thing about our program is that it can benefit people at all different levels. Some students come in ready to talk and even arrive with background knowledge. We also spend time laying the foundation — going over definitions and having pointed discussions to get everyone on the same page.

I think there are two groups: people who are really willing and eager to participate, and those who aren’t interested or aren’t ready yet. Some students may want to be there, but find it difficult to open up. We offer incentives, especially to get students to come on the first day. For example, we might say, “Bring a friend, come the first day, see if you like it, and we’ll give you a $10 gift card.” Often, students will say they’re coming just for the gift card, but really, they’re interested for deeper reasons.

In general, our students are looking for a space to talk about these issues and value having that space. They’re often very open, not only about their own experiences, but also about what they see on social media, among friends and family, and in their communities. These are often universal issues, like comparing ourselves to others or facing pressure around food. We’ve had students talk about food insecurity in their households or gender discrimination in their schools. It becomes a space to discuss a range of topics that connect to a core issue.

Are there certain demographics that these issues disproportionately impact?

I get asked a lot whether this really affects our students, and the answer is — it does!

There’s a misconception that eating disorders only affect thin, white, affluent women. That’s not true. Rates of eating disorders are nearly equivalent across all racial backgrounds. Some disorders impact certain groups more than others. For example, Black teenagers are 50% more likely to exhibit bulimic behavior than their white peers. People of color across all groups have higher rates of binge eating disorder than their white counterparts. Anorexia is more common among white people, but that doesn’t mean BIPOC individuals don’t experience it — it’s just slightly more prevalent among white folks.

Even so, people of color are half as likely to be diagnosed or treated. Only 10–20% of people who develop an eating disorder will actually get treatment. That means there are so many people we’re not reaching! Eating disorders are preventable illnesses. When you build in protective factors and reduce risk across a wide range of people, you can reach many of them.

Thirty million Americans will develop an eating disorder in their lifetime, and 13% of youth will develop one by age 20. These programs need to be wide-reaching because they’re affecting far more people than we realize. Histories of racial trauma and food insecurity — past or present — also heighten eating disorder risk. These are co-occurring issues. Eating disorders often appear alongside depression, anxiety, and substance use disorder.

Your mission statement intentionally calls out that you work in populations that lack access to treatment, representation, and preventative care. How is Body Empowerment Project successfully navigating these communities without perpetuating a savior complex, and in some cases, a white savior complex?

We really emphasize leadership and facilitators with diverse experiences and identities. It’s important to us, especially to me as a Philadelphia native whose family has been here for generations, to be of and from the community. Team members who are not from Philly still deeply value the input of our participants and school partners. We collect extensive feedback and integrate it into everything we do. We love to highlight student voices and opinions. From the beginning, when we set our values as an organization, we made sure they were aligned with and developed from community needs, not just our own goals.

How is the Body Empowerment Project related directly to gender equity?

Eating disorders affect people of all genders! There’s a misconception that they only affect women and girls, but that’s not true. Still, eating disorders and the issues that come with them — unrealistic body standards, systemic control over bodies — do disproportionately affect women and girls.

[Our mission] is also about empowering youth to be activists in their communities. It’s about understanding how their perception of their bodies is connected to systems of oppression, and all the messages the world sends about why they shouldn’t love their bodies. Especially with the youth we serve, it’s hard to tell a young Black girl, “Love yourself,” when the world tears her down every day. So bringing those conversations to the forefront — that’s gender equity work.

How has the WOMEN’S WAY General Operating Fund helped expand the Body Empowerment Project’s impact in the community?

At the core, funding helps build programs. Having more sustainable funding — and especially a multi-year grant — has been transformative. Since we first applied to WOMEN’S WAY in 2023, we’ve reached about 1,500 students. At the time of our application, we had around 600 to 700 students. So just by the numbers, it’s helped us grow tremendously.

Beyond that, it connected us with an amazing group of people and women who care about our work. Other funders became interested. People reached out to volunteer or collaborate in ways that went beyond the initial funding. As much as I value the money itself — and I do — I also really value the legitimacy and visibility it’s brought us in the community.

What new projects or opportunities do you see on the horizon for the Body Empowerment Project?

We’re trying to grow as much as possible. This past year, we were lucky to hire our second full-time employee — a program manager, who’s amazing.

Our main goal is to reach as many students as we can while maintaining the impact of our programming. We’re working on a new strategic plan to guide our growth. We’re thinking about expanding to younger kids, adding more schools just outside of Philly, and finding ways to subsidize programming in public schools.

Now that we’ve proven the program works, we want to reach more people. That might involve designing new programming tailored to younger students, while staying aligned with our mission.

We’ve been around long enough to know what works. Now we’re asking: How do we expand our team? Grow our board? Make this sustainable so we can be here as long as we’re needed? And if anyone is interested please reach out!

I always say I’m trying to work myself out of a job — that would be lovely. But we’ll always need some form of eating disorder prevention. So we want to stick around. And right now, we’re hopeful that we will.

Stay connected with Body Empowerment Project by following them on Instagram: @body_empowerment_project or heading to their website: https://www.bodyempowerment.net/