LGBT Safe Spaces, Body Image And Mental Health, Congressman Reacts To Mass Shooting At Gay Nightclub In Orlando

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• Research Suggests Mental, Physical Strains Of Body Image

  The effects of a negative body image goes beyond taking a psychological toll on young women. It can also lead to physical health repercussions by causing women to be less proactive about their health.

  Virginia Ramseyer Winter, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Missouri School of Social Work, said that this problem can have important impacts on their lives.

  “Those who have worse body image are less likely to be screened for cancer, less likely to seek preventative care,” said Winter. “They may avoid the doctor to avoid being weighed or engage in unhealthy weight control behaviors.”

  Winter also mentioned that research points to a relationship between negative body image and depression, anxiety and certain high-risk behaviors. Though there isn’t enough research to say that the inverse is true — that positive body image leads to better decision-making, Winter said she was willing to hypothesize that better body image “would lead to better overall well-being.”

  There is, however, research on how positive body image relates to sexual health. Winter said that it suggests that young women who feel better about their bodies are more likely to take proactive and preventive sexual health measures.

  “Things like communicating with their partners about sexually transmitted infections before engaging in sex, using some sort of protection to prevent pregnancy, if that wasn’t what they wanted at the time, (and) getting their vaccinations for human papilloma virus,” she said.

  But despite research making it seem obvious that body positivity can only yield good things, the media — TV, movies, magazines, advertising — and members of one’s own family don’t always make it easy to feel happy about the way a person is.

  Winter said that complimenting girls and young women on things other than their appearance as a way for to encourage self-worth beyond physical appearance. And there are also ways that women who have carried a negative body image from their formative years into their adulthood can move towards body acceptance and positivity.

  Winter mentioned surrounding oneself with people that don’t engage in “fat talk” and also taking a “strengths-based approach.”

  “If a woman is unhappy with the size of her stomach, she may still appreciate it because it was what allowed her to carry her child,” Winter said. “If we are unhappy with our appearance in some way, we can still appreciate it.”

• What The Orlando Shooting Says About Safe Spaces For The LGBT Community

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  In a statement following the shootings at an Orlando gay nightclub yesterday, President Obama said that the attack was on a place that is “more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights.” We talk to a guest who wrote in a column that the shooting is a reminder that there are few safe spaces for the LGBT community.

• Positive Body Image Can Mean Better Health

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  Negative body image has been shown to lead to poor health and life choices. Our guest says that the opposite is also true: that positive body image can improve mental and physical health in girls and women.

• U.S. Representative Mark Pocan Reacts To The Mass Shooting In Orlando

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  On early Sunday morning, a shooter killed 49 people and injured at least 53 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. This is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, and it’s left the LGBT community and many others in mourning. Congressman Mark Pocan, who represents Wisconsin’s Second Congressional District and is the Co-Chair of the LGBT Equality Caucus, shares his reaction to the shooting.