Mental Health Awareness Week 2019 Body Image – How We Think and Feel About Our Bodies

By Haylee Cowley | April 30, 2019

Hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Awareness Week 2019 will take place from Monday 13 to Sunday 19 May 2019. The theme for 2019 is Body Image – how we think and feel about our bodies. 

Community Access Support Service will be shifting the focus from how our bodies look to what they are capable of doing. We’ll be asking people from Bristol’s diverse communities to think about what they appreciate most about what their bodies can do to make them feel good by asking ‘what can your body do that makes you love life?’. However you look and however able-bodied you may be, everybody can use their body to enjoy life, whether you’re hugging your loved ones, listening to music or feeling the sun on your face.  

CASS will be running a social media campaign and a poster campaign during this week to encourage Bristol’s residents to celebrate the wide range of activities our bodies allow us to experience. The team will take pictures of people holding a card with the Mental Health Awareness Week hashtag #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek, a local hashtag #MyBodyCan and a description of what their body can do that makes them love life.

Body image issues can affect all of us at any age and during the week the Mental Health Foundation will be publishing new research, considering some of the reasons why our body image can impact the way that we feel, campaigning for change and publishing practical tools. 

CASS will publish resources and information about local services who can support mental health and emotional wellbeing on our website during this week, with a specific focus on body image issues. 

How to get involved 

  • Print off a CASS template and write something that your body does that makes you love life. You can also include how this activity makes you feel. You can then get someone to take a picture of you holding your poster – you can add in your own organisation’s logo to the template if you like, and the words will show up better if written in marker!
  • Share on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtags #MyBodyCan and #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek – remember to tag in @CASSBristol 
  • If you prefer, you can take pictures and send them to CASS to share. Please note, we will need a consent form signed by the subject of the photo in order for us to share pictures from the CASS social media accounts, you’ll find a consent form here. If you share from your own social media accounts, CASS does not need consent from you.
  • The Mental Health Foundation has graphics and details of local events, all of which can be promoted as part of the awareness week. There are also ideas for running your own events, a thunderclap you can sign up to and personal stories to share. 
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