On February 21st, 2011, Jones College Commons was host to the 2011 performance of Love Your Body Monologues. Below we will be adding videos of each of our performers from this year. The Love Your Body Monologues are held as part of the Wellness Center's "Love Your Body Month", a month long program geared towards raising awareness of body image issues on campus and to help students achieve better body image confidence within themselves.
Issues concerning our bodies are everywhere. Everyday we are bombarded with images with what we should look like. We are a culture obsessed with appearance. Unfortunately, obtaining a certain appearance is associated with success and correlated with certain rights; the right to be respected, right to be loved, right to be noticed, right to wear nice clothing, right to eat what we want. Sadly, here at Rice we are no different. Body image issues face both females and males alike. Students at Rice whose thoughts and behaviors about food, eating, self image, and self worth that have become so illogical and so out of control and intense, that they are defined as medical conditions, referred to as eating disorders.
Eating disorders don’t just happen- they happen for a variety of reasons. Contrary to other diseases, such as STDs—we don’t talk about eating disorders. Love Your Body Monologues are adopted from the same format as the popular performance, Vagina Monologues. The monologue format allows individuals to share their own personal experiences with body image issues and eating disorders. Intimate words of Rice students past and present are read by volunteers. Some are sad, some concerning, some offer hope, listen to their words, consider their words, and take some time to love your body. You may find some of these monologues distressing-please note the resources found at the bottom of this page for places to talk about or get help if you or someone you know is suffering from body image issues or an eating disorder. Please enjoy and share--the more these videos are viewed the more awareness and help can be given to students who suffer.
"Through reading and listening to these monologues-I felt as though there is something in each one that I could relate to or a feeling that I could identify with. I feel as though a lot of students at Rice could identify in the same way..." -LYBM 2011 Performer
Rice and Houston Area Body Image and Eating Disorder Resources:
Rice University Wellness Center:
The Body Project- Evidenced based small group discussion program geared towards challenging the "thin ideal" and raising self-esteem. Open to all students, graduate and undergraduate, groups starting Fall 2011. http://wellness.rice.edu/thebodyproject
Free Nutrition and Wellness Coaching, call 713-348-5194 to make an appointment
Rice Counseling Center:
Free counseling services, call 713-348-4867
The Healthy Weigh:
Nutrition counseling specializing in eating disorders, also hold free group eating disorder recovery sessions. www.thehealthyweighonline.com, 713-622-6422
Mentor Connect:
Free online global eating disorder mentoring community. www.mentorconnect-ed.org
National Eating Disorders Association:
nationaleatingdisorders.org, Information and referral hotline: 800-931-2237
