Sans Souci Sea Devils Swim Club member and Youth Advisory Panel member Matthew Chen has shown that small changes can make a big difference when it comes to tackling body shaming and encouraging positive body imagery in young people.
A simple idea to modify his club’s website to include pictures that have more cultural and body diversity is designed to help to make the club feel more welcoming to everyone and have life-changing effects on its culture.
Matthew decided to do this because he wanted to ensure that Sans Souci was not just a club where you could exercise and workout, but rather a place where you can become part of a caring community. He did this by adding diversity to the photos in both cultural and bodily ways, to help eliminate the fear of getting judged or bullied by one’s background, colour, or shape.
“In my eyes, the current website is now looking a lot better than before, having introduced photos of more culturally diverse people, and including shapes of various bodies to incorporate the feeling that Sans Souci Leisure Centre was a place where everyone could belong.”
Anyone can follow his lead simply by approaching the decision-makers at their club and requesting for more diversity to be represented on the website and social media channels, which can be easily achieved with free stock images.
Matthew’s ‘Representation Matters’ initiative is one of many ‘change maker’ projects conceived by this year’s Youth Advisory Panel members for the Swim Confident program, which was a key focus of the SNSW 2023 Youth Leadership Camp. YAP members took part in comprehensive workshops on how to improve their own body image, stand up for others and ultimately how to create change back in their home swimming clubs. They were invited to consider initiatives that targeted four key areas: communication, clothing, culture, and connection.
A Swim Confident Club Resource has been created to showcase all of their ideas. Read their stories and be inspired to create change in your own club – it all starts with you!
Why not take the FREE e-learning course delivered by Body Confident Collective as your first step to becoming a body image champion. Learn more about this course and the other resources we have available to assist our members to become better equipped and educated to recognise and respond to body image concerns at their clubs.
