Body Talk Your Body: Your Image

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Hi, I'm Melissa Suffield, actress and reporter.

And I'm Radzi Chinyanganya, athlete and TV presenter.

If you're a fan of EastEnders, you may remember me

as Lucy Beale, who I played through my teenage years.

I was constantly being judged on my appearance rather

than my acting ability.

It put a real pressure on me to be slim and beautiful all the time.

It meant I spent half my life wearing push-up bras

and Spanx pants.

What? Isn't Spandex back?

Yeah, in the back of my wardrobe.

Now, although I may be a guy,

I've had my fair share of feeling insecure about the way I look.

I'm definitely not tall, and I'm far from Mr Universe.

But let me say,

this man proved that real fitness beats giant abs any day.

At just 21, he signed up to the TV show Gladiators.

MUSIC: "Eye Of the Tiger" by Survivor

And weren't you the lightest contestant

-they ever had on the show?

-Yeah, I was 10 stones.

Yeah, in a David and Goliath style battle, Radzi won! Woo!

Anyway, we've come here to a high school in the West Country

to conduct an exciting new experiment.

And it's called Body Talk.

-Hi, guys.

-Hey.

-I'm Melissa.

-And I'm Radzi.

We're here today to talk to you guys about body image.

So, first of all, what do you think the definition of body image is?

The way you feel about being who you are.

I think body image is the way you feel and how others view you.

I think body image is when you define yourself into a category

of what you think you look like.

You judge yourself and your self-esteem.

Body image is basically the way you feel about the way you look.

So now, before you do anything else,

we'd like you to fill out our Body Talk surveys.

All we need you to do is fill out, on a scale of one to ten,

how you're feeling about the way you look right now.

So if you put between five and ten, you're feeling good about yourself.

And if you put from nought to five,

you're probably having a bit of a rubbish day.

But don't worry, it's totally anonymous,

so we want you to be completely honest.

OK, this is my ballot box. I'm going to ask you to fill them out

and put them in here, is that OK?

The influence of the media certainly needs to take a big

part of the blame when it comes to us feeling bad about our bodies.

But there are other causes closer to us which can also make us feel bad.

Body Talk and body-bullying are quite common.

You know what we mean.

When we say something bad about the way another person looks,

be it your friends, your classmates, a celebrity, or even yourself.

Now, you might think you're being funny,

but put yourself on the receiving end.

It can be very upsetting.

In some cases, the impact can be devastating, with long-term

and even deadly consequences.

Guys, as we can see from your body image surveys,

you're not feeling great about the way you look right now.

So we're going to see if it's possible

to improve those scores over just two days.

What we want to do is ban Body Talk bullying.

We want to see if we can get you feeling

a bit better about yourselves.

What we're going to do is called Bright Body Talk.

It's not just about banning negative Body Talk,

but about encouraging positive Body Talk.

So over the next couple of days we want you guys to stop all

of your negative comments to each other and basically feed each other

compliments about how great you look and how great you are.

-No more negativity, yes?

-ALL: Yeah!

-Positivity!

-ALL: Yeah!

-Cool, compliments for your friends?

-ALL: Yeah!

-Wicked. Good to go.

'I say, are you getting your friends down

'with your witty body image banter?

'When you say bad things about the way someone looks,

'are you making them feel sad about the way they look?

'Well, are you?

'Time to try Bright Body Talk.'

-I love your hands so much.

-Thank you. You're such a good singer.

Oh, I really like your eyes. They bring out your face.

Thank you, Chloe.

-Yeah, um, I like your new Facebook picture.

-Cheers.

I like your eye colour. It's really nice.

It's, like, reflecting around your face.

I like your hair, man.

Well, our top team have now spent a whole day partaking in our

Body Talk experiments.

But before we see how it's gone,

there's just one more thing we need them to do.

One of the biggest problems is that we don't realise how critical

we're being about ourselves.

We partake in self-bullying and we regularly beat ourselves up.

Most of the time we don't even realise we're actually doing it.

You know the kind of thing we mean.

-Radzi, I feel so fat today. I look awful.

-Fat? You look fine.

-I'm the one that's skinny and puny.

-As if.

Have you seen the state of my little finger? It's not so little, is it?

Your little finger? My hair is out of control at the moment.

OK, guys. Behind me is our very own Big Brother Radzi room.

What we want you to do, we've got a camera set up,

we just want to hear about you, hear about how you're feeling.

We want to hear a positive thing about how you're feeling,

and a positive piece about what you think you're looking like.

I like that I'm funny and I like that I'm tall.

I like how I'm quite sociable and I like my eyes.

The one thing that is good about me is my hair.

..is my muscularity and my supreme athleticism.

I'm quite clever.

I can make friends quite easily. And I also like my hair.

I'm a good guy to hang out with.

I like my smile and my athleticism.

OK, guys. This is my Big Sister Melissa room.

I like my eyebrows.

I like my eyes and about myself, I can be a good friend.

I'm good at athletics and I like my eyes.

I'm considered a good singer.

And I also like my hair.

A good listener. And I like my nose.

I'm a good dancer and I like my dimple.

Well, we've almost come to the end of the school day.

And our young group have filled out the same forms

that they filled out yesterday.

But the question is, has two days of positive Body Talk helped to

improve the teenagers' body image, and have they stopped body-bullying?

Let's find out.

Guys, yesterday on your body image survey scores, you got out of 160...

77.

And we were looking to improve that. And today, you did.

On your surveys, out of 160, you got 111!

CHEERING

-Well done, guys.

-Absolutely awesome.

-Do you think you're going to be more positive from now on?

-ALL: Yeah!

Well, guys, it just goes to show that in two days we've started

to beat body image bullying.

With the start of Bright Body Talk.

It's the fastest and potentially the easiest way

for us to feel better about our body image.

You've seen how easy it is, so you give it a try.

Keep up the good work, guys.

CHEERING

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd