Miranda: Youth board manager at teens for teens Help. Heading: Body Image & Youth
Tanishka: Hi, Miranda. So can you tell us about your role as a youth board manager at Teens for Teens Help and how your background in neurology, physiology, and behavior has influenced your work in supporting youth?
Miranda: Yeah, so as the youth board manager at Teens for Teens Help, my job is primarily to help lead our youth board, which includes teens and young adults ages like 14 to I think 24, honestly, you know, just to help lead them and to help them grow our organization, our reach and our impact when it comes to teen mental health so that we can continue to be a youth-centered organization.
My degree in neurobiology, physiology, and behavior is a mouthful, but I actually also got a minor in psychology and worked in a psychology lab, the developmental research center at UC Davis, as a research assistant and then eventually as the lab manager. And as the lab manager, a big part of my job was, you know, leading a team of undergraduate research assistants who helped us collect and manage the data from some of the studies that we were conducting. And this was kind of my favorite part of the job, just helping our RAs to, you know, get more involved in the lab and for them to start seeing the bigger picture and why we were doing the studies that we were doing and more importantly, why the studies we were doing mattered.
And so now as a youth board manager, I use that same experience to help get, you know, our teens more involved with our organization and just to watch them grow as mental health advocates now gets to be my favorite part of this job.
Tanishka: That’s really great to know. So from your experience working with young people, to what extent do you think that negative body image affects today’s younger generation?
Miranda: I mean, negative body image affects like so many teens and young adults. And, you know, unfortunately, like children nowadays, you know, it’s emerging just like younger and younger. And I think recent research has it at like, I think more than half of, you know, teens and young adults report some sort of dissatisfaction with their bodies. And, you know, I’ve also learned that, you know, people who identify as men have largely been overlooked in conversations about body image, despite many of them also struggling with their body image and self-esteem.
And I think that’s why we’re kind of seeing more and more young men wanting to look more like muscular, this like rise in gym culture, you know, which then leads to like body dysmorphia and disordered eating. So I think in my experience working with young people, it’s really illuminated how like prevalent it is in their generation. And I’m sure some of that also has to do with social media use. But I don’t think it’s all of it. You know, it has more to do with society as a whole.
Tanishka: That’s very true. I really like the point you brought about young men, because I feel like a lot of times whenever someone talks about body shaming, they always assume that it’s women for some reason. And no one really thinks about like, oh, like men’s skincare, like whenever someone says men’s skincare, they’re like, oh, like can men even do skincare? So I really like that.
Miranda: Yeah, absolutely. I just read a really great article about, they called it like bigorexia, which was basically like talking about how like young men are just being like plagued with, you know, gym culture on social media. And so they’re starting to like go to the gym for like way too long and not eat enough food to actually sustain their bodies. And like, you know, it’s having these really negative like health outcomes. And it’s largely just because they like want to see more muscular, like the people they see on social media. And I just think it’s kind of still being overlooked because, you know, we just assume it’s girls that don’t like their bodies.
Tanishka: That’s true. That’s like, I feel like a very important point to talk about. Additionally, have you ever personally struggled with negative body image or do you know others who have? And it’s totally fine if you’re not comfortable sharing. I can always ask another question.
Miranda: No, I’m totally cool with sharing. So I’ve always grown up as like a bigger kid and was always like the biggest kid as compared to my peers for, you know, as long as I can remember. And, you know, as a kid, I was pretty active. I played multiple sports. I played softball all throughout high school and just like stayed a pretty like active kid in terms of being outside. However, like it didn’t change the fact of what my body looked like.So, you know, not being able to like share clothes with my friends or shop at the same stores made it like really hard for me to feel included at times. There’s one particular experience that I had in high school that kind of stuck with me and changed my mindset. I was shopping with my best friend for her birthday and we went to Abercrombie. And so I’m a really big girl and she’s a really little girl. And so I’ve always had the experience growing up of going shopping for clothes and crying in dressing rooms. And just like, you know, all of the mirrors and the terrible lighting they have in like retail stores, right? And just, you know, hating that experience and assuming that girls who are small would never have to worry about that.
And so I’m shopping with my best friend for her birthday, who’s tiny, and she’s in a dressing room at Abercrombie and she’s crying because none of the clothes at Abercrombie will fit her because she’s too small. And I was, you know, sitting there like, I can’t get anything from Abercrombie. It’s all, you know, too small for me. And so for me to kind of see like her experience, just really made me aware of how, you know, how we feel about our bodies can impact our self-esteem so significantly. You know, and here she’s wishing that she can be bigger while I’m begging the universe to shrink me. And like, it just showed me that having body image issues can affect anyone and it doesn’t really matter like what you look like or like what size you are.
Tanishka: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that experience. And I totally agree that like, like your appearance doesn’t matter, like your personality and your education that matters so much more than what somebody looks like or what somebody’s body is shaped. So thank you so much for sharing that. And my next question was, in your research on the socio-emotional and cognitive impacts of childhood trauma, what are the cognitive effects that bullying related to body image can have on children or teenagers?
Miranda: So to be honest, like the research that I did, we really focused more on early childhood and like adolescents, you know, so like three to seven, I would say. And we studied childhood trauma and how it relates to, you know, socio-emotional and cognitive impacts. But we really focused like on memory and how that relates to a legal context. You know, so we would look at victims of childhood sexual abuse and how their memory and providing testimony can be impacted. So I can’t really speak from my research experience about the effects of bullying. However, like our lab was, you know, dedicated to development, developmental psychology. And what we did, you know, touch on is how the adolescent brain is rapidly developing and relies heavily on how it experiences the world to kind of form an understanding of like who a child is. And so if a child is being bullied during a critical period of development, it’s going to have a greater likelihood of shaping how that child, you know, sees themselves and where their value lies. And in particular, how their body can shape their value.
Tanishka: Right, yeah. Lastly, I just wanted to ask that what measures do you believe society, schools and families can take to reduce body shaming and help build a more supportive environment for young people? All right, how much time do you have? I’m just kidding. You can like talk however you want to, like that’s better, yeah. So, you know, starting off like we should just be talking about.
Miranda: So, you know, starting off, I just think we should be talking about our bodies from a neutral perspective. You know, body positivity is great and it served its purpose. But ultimately we should be like shifting towards body neutrality and not praising a body for what it looks like one way or the other. And this really does start at home by parents and families not only speaking neutrally about their child and their children’s bodies, but also about their own bodies in front of their kids. Like I really love the moms I’m seeing on TikTok now that vow not to talk negatively about their bodies in front of their kids just because they know that kids are always listening and integrating that information into how they perceive themselves. So just because you’re not telling your son that he’s not muscular enough, it doesn’t mean that your son might not overhear you talking about how you need to go to the gym more because you’re not bulky enough, right?
And then for schools, they’ve got to find a new way to improve the methods to stop bullying, especially online harassment that occurs when the kids leave school. And again, I know that kind of responsibility also lies with the parents, but I just think there has to be a better way to mitigate online bullying from the school’s end.
And then of course, societal level, diet culture has become so prevalent, especially in the wellness sphere where we kind of exist. And so the first step to stopping those ideas from progressing is just acknowledging that they do exist and can be harmful. Unfortunately, we’re really seeing that pendulum swing back towards thinness as the standard right now. We have Ozempic and GLP-1s that have become all of the craze right now. So I think we just have to be cognizant of this and refuse to accept that being thin is the new norm. We can promote healthy lifestyles and move our bodies without promoting diet culture.
And so how I do this is I try to follow and shop from brands that have inclusive sizing, which doesn’t just mean having a few extended sizes online or offering a fraction of the styles that they carry in their straight sizes. I’m talking about Abercrombie and also following creators who also promote that. I follow a creator named Samira, who’s a performer, but also an activist who does a really great job at making content that calls out a lot of brands that claim to be inclusive, but really aren’t. So I think just trying to amplify those voices that are trying to push forward the body neutrality movement while also stifling the brands that are trying to profit from body positivity and not actually doing the work that matters would be at least a great start for us.
Tanishka: Yeah. Thank you so much for your insights. And I completely agree with the point you made about even when a child is super young and if their environment is like, if their mom’s like, oh, like they’re talking about their body, it can affect a child because recently I actually have a younger sister at home and I didn’t realize I was like looking in the mirror and I was like, oh, like I really need to start working out. But I like I really didn’t think through it. And my younger sister was like, oh, yeah, even I have to work out, which I feel like I didn’t realize at that point, but I feel like it’s very important to be careful what we are saying around younger people.
Miranda: Yeah, and that’s so true, like bringing up siblings too, because sometimes, you know, siblings can also kind of reinforce however you’re feeling and especially, you know, kids are always watching what their parents are doing, but they’re infatuated with what they’re like older siblings are doing. They want to be just like them, you know. So that’s such a great point to be made.
Tanishka: Yeah. Thank you so much, Miranda, though. Thank you so much for your time. I know you’re super busy and I really appreciate you doing this interview.
Miranda: Oh, yes, absolutely. I’m glad that I could help and talk a little bit about this because I could ramble about this for hours. So thank you for having me do it in a more controlled manner. It’s good for me. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. I hope you have a day.