Graphic by Sana Amin

NYU Abu Dhabi’s Health Promotion Office and student group REACH worked together to host a series of events about body positivity and body image titled Love Your Body Week, that took place between Feb. 21 and Feb. 24.

One of the main goals behind Love Your Body Week was to encourage participants to reflect and question the ideals of beauty as represented in the media. This hoped to inspire students to think about their bodies in a positive light.

The initiative featured events such as Love Letters, in which students wrote letters to magazines that promoted unhealthy body images. The movie Miss Representation was also screened.

One of the more popular events was Perfect, As Is, where students wrote about what they liked most about their bodies.

"I think it’s a great project, and in today's world of constant bombardment of false ideals of perfection onto to our generation, it’s great to see that some people can share their self confidence to promote the idea of self acceptance," said freshman Waqar Younas Khan.

Senior Rasha Shraim, a REACH ambassador, spoke about the group's role in the initiative.

"From our perspective, we wanted to help start a positive conversation about body image and health. Even among educated college students, there seem to be a lot of misconceptions about what being healthy means, whether it is in terms of eating or exercise,” said Sharim. “We wanted to show that healthy and enjoyable are not mutually exclusive.”

According to Shraim, the events were a success and promoted dialogue about body image.

"Students definitely responded positively to the series,” said Shraim. “There was a lot ​of discussion at the events themselves and hopefully those had a ripple effect. We wanted people to start thinking more actively about topics like beauty standards and being healthy and that definitely happened."