The Women, Body Image, and Leadership webinar gave Chestermere residents an opportunity to discuss how body image changes the way women get involved in their community and became leaders in society.
On June 18, over 30 residents joined Registered Psychologist Cinder Smith, and the City of Chestermere’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategist, Joanne Kinya Baker to discuss challenges women face regarding body image and tools to help women overcome body image issues and eating disorders.
“We had a really good time, we had interesting conversations, and learning about how body image shapes the way we show up as leaders in society,” Kinya Baker said.
“It’s important to have those conversations because a lot of women have a very negative sense of self-image, and that prevents them from showing up,” she said.
“I believe that women and body image has been a long-standing issue in our society, it’s been ongoing, and social media has definitely put even more of an influence on it,” Smith said.
During the Women, Body Image and Leadership webinar, Smith presented a 2011 study that was conducted through the Yale Centre of Emotional Intelligence which revealed a connection between anxiety, stress, and negative feelings of potential leaders, and a correlation to mental health, Body Mass Index (BMI), and sleep cycles.
The study also found that individuals who managed anxiety, stress, and negative emotions had a healthier mental health state, sleep-wake cycles, and BMI.
The outcomes of a healthy leader included a 50 to 60 per cent increase in inspiration between employees when they had a leader who had emotional intelligence, self-awareness, awareness of others, and could regulate emotions. There was also a decrease in burnout of employees, and their general frustration related to work decreased.
Smith also presented the findings of a KPMG study on women in leadership, which revealed that 67 per cent of women reported learning the most important lessons about leadership from other women, 82 per cent of working women believed access to and networking with other female leaders would help them in their career, 86 per cent of women reported when they see more women in leadership roles they are encouraged, and 91 per cent of women indicated it’s important to them to be a position role model for younger female colleagues.
When the City of Chestermere’s Diversity and Inclusion team conducted the initial consultation in December, regarding women and leadership roles, women were asked what were the things that prevented them from leadership.
“A lot of it was around shame and body shame, and how the resistance to participate in politics and leadership was really centered around that they felt ashamed for putting themselves out there in public for several reasons, it could be height, it could be size, it could be skin. Image is all-encompassing of all these things,” Kinya Baker said.
“We felt this was one thing we needed to address,” she said.
Throughout the Women, Body Image and Leadership webinar women shared their experiences of what prevented them from being able to show up and get involved in their community.
“We felt that we need to take this conversation further because this was just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to these talks,” Kinya Baker said.
“We determined it’s best to do this type of work when we’re all in a room together. It would be something down the line when we’ll pick up on the topic again and go through some coaching exercises,” she added. “For now, we have some of the most amazing fundamentals.”
Through the webinar, Kinya Baker is hopeful that participants take away the idea that they do not need to absorb another person’s negativity.
“I’m also hoping that women take away the idea that we need to support each other and lift each other up as women, because in many ways we are all we have for each other. This is a male-dominated world, and it’s a very toxic world,” Kinya Baker said.
“I believe the support that women give each other can take them somewhere much further if they do it together,” she said.
While Smith is hopeful participants took away an understanding of what body image is defined as, and how it presents clinically.
“I hope they have a sense of an understanding of the treatment of modalities that are best practiced for body image, self-esteem, and eating disorders,” Smith said.
“The webinar addressed women in leadership, and what are some of the qualifiers that have been researched that support healthy, positive, influential women in leadership, that was really what I hoped hit home for people, and shown some light on it,” she said.
After the Women, Body Image and Leadership webinar Kinya Baker heard extremely positive feedback from participants who were going to implement the tools they learned during the webinar to their everyday lives.
“I heard feedback from people saying they really loved the webinar, and they felt like the message really spoke to them,” Kinya Baker said.
“There was a lot of food for thought, and a lot of things that people are going to take back and do their own self-work on,” she added. “I’m hoping people took away the idea that we’re all uniquely beautiful, and we all have so much to offer.”
Kinya Baker is now encouraging residents to participate in the Resilience, Women and Leadership webinar on July 2.
“It’s going to be a really awesome conversation that’s taking on some of the aspects covered in this in terms of confidence and being authentically yourself,” Kinya Baker said.
Moving forward, the Diversity and Inclusion is seeking the input of women for topics they want to learn, and how they can best be supported.
“I’m hoping that people will come up and say they want to discuss certain issues in the community that affects them as a woman, and as immigrant woman, and we would do our best to fit the need,” Kinya Baker said.
Residents with suggestions on topics are asked to email diversity@chestermere.ca
