NOW Foundation Celebrates Seventh Annual Love Your Body Day

October 20, 2004

Today the NOW Foundation celebrates our seventh annual Love Your Body Day with new energy and exciting plans for the coming year.

Since its inception in 1998, the Love Your Body campaign has spoken out against harmful and offensive advertisements and media images of women and girls, while promoting positive portrayals in popular culture. This year, Oct. 20 is a day of action for students, teachers and women and girls of all ages.

Excitement about this year's Love Your Body Day started to build early, with a huge outpouring of more than 3,500 entries in the annual poster competition.

"More and more women and girls across the country are embracing Love Your Body Day every year," said NOW Foundation President Kim Gandy. "They are telling the fashion, cosmetics and diet industries that they reject the myth that women's bodies need constant renovation and enhancement. Women and girls are saying no to impossible beauty standards."

This year, the Love Your Body campaign has a completely re-designed web site loaded with useful information, action ideas and fun features. Visitors to the site can send e-cards with winning Love Your Body poster designs, view a gallery of bad and good ads, and take the body image survey.

Love Your Body has also added national spokespeople to the campaign. They include Jessica Weiner, performer and author of "A Very Hungry Girl," Wendy Shanker, comedian and author of "The Fat Girls Guide to Life," and Wendy Hilsen-Bernard, author, psychotherapist and mind-body wellness expert.

In the coming year, NOW Foundation will be expanding Love Your Body to a year-round campaign. The poster contest is already underway, with a Dec. 1 deadline ensuring that the winning design will be used throughout 2005.

For more information on the campaign, visit http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org or call 202-628-8669 ext. 123.

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