The government’s inaugural Positive Body Image Awards were announced today with teen magazine Dolly taking out the top award.
The Minister for Youth Peter Garrett awarded the winners at an event today recognising organisations in the fashion, media and entertainment and advertising industries taking steps to promote positive body image messages to young people, in line with the Voluntary Industry Code of Conduct on Body Image.
Entrants were considered by a panel of representatives from the three industries with the selection committee chaired by Australian Women’s Weekly Editor-in-Chief Helen McCabe.
The advisory panel chose Dolly magazine as the overall winner, commending the magazine on its commitment to promoting positive body image messages to young people by presenting healthy images of young women including a non-models and a diverse range of young women in photo shoots, endorsing age-appropriate clothes, make-up and hair styling, and adhering to a self-imposed strict “retouch-free” policy.
Teen magazine Girlfriend was highly commended for its promotion of positive body image as well, with its “no retouching” policy, use of age-appropriate models, and featuring readers of all shapes, sizes and ethnicities, applauded.
Also coming in highly commended was Dove, an entrant in the advertising category with their BodyThink program, and Tasmanian modelling agency En Vogue.
By recognising some of the positive work being carried out in this area, the aim of the awards is to encourage other individuals and organisations to follow suit and commit to tackling this issue that is increasingly concerning for the young people of Australia.
Though the panel was pleased to award these organisations that are doing good work in this field, body image advisory panel head Helen McCabe said businesses still have a long way to go.
“Not enough people are actually doing work in this area for us to have the luxury of a wide choice of applicants to consider,” she said.
“By awarding these companies we hope to encourage more organisations and individuals to be active in this area and take part.”
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