KENNESAW, Ga. | Mar 28, 2025

Learn more about the Body Positive KSU program from registered dietitian, Danielle Southern.

In this episode of the Wellbeing@KSU Podcast, Danielle Souther, a registered dietitian at Kennesaw State University, talks about the Body Positive KSU program that helps students harbor a healthy body image. 

 

Episode Transcript:

Natalia Gumbs 
Hello, Owls. Welcome to the Kennesaw State University Wellbeing@KSU podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Natalia Gumbs, a peer health educator at the Health Promotion and Wellness office. Today, we're exploring one of KSU’s new programs, Body Positive KSU. Joining us is our expert guest, Danielle Southern, one of KSU's registered dietitians and Health Promotion and Wellness. Danielle, thanks for agreeing to join us again for this podcast to provide students in the KSU community with insights into how we can advocate for them openly as well as behind the scenes. 

Danielle Southern 
Yeah. Thank you for having me today. 

Natalia  
So, Danielle, to begin, can you explain the missions and goals of Body Positive KSU and how it aims to impact students' body image and well-being? 

Danielle 
Yeah. So college is a time of learning, growing, changing, and with that change, there can be changes to your nutrition and physical activity, peer groups, body image as a whole. And so, Body Positive KSU was started in 2022 to help students with that transition. Body Positive KSU is a subset of Body Positive, which is a nonprofit organization, and the mission of these things really is to address the harmful consequences of negative body image. BP KSU aims to do all of that in addition to celebrating all those unique aspects that make us different.  Like I said, college is a time of new experiences. You're going to be meeting a lot of new people with a lot of different experiences and stories. And the way that we engage students with BP KSU is through five different competencies, and those are, I'll just kind of list them out and give some background on them. The first one is reclaiming health, so learning practical strategies to prioritize your physical health without compromising your mental or emotional well-being. Practicing intuitive self-care. So, uncovering the art of listening to your body's cues, especially when it comes to hunger, physical activity, and rest. Once your body's really telling you. Cultivating self-love, which tends to be a big challenge, especially with diet culture. A lot of people don't feel like they are allowed to love themselves, but that's embracing your body as it is, including the flaws and imperfections, and that you are worthy of love and kindness just the way that you are. You don't really need to change yourself for that. The fourth one is declaring your own authentic beauty, and so beauty isn't one-size-fits-all and we celebrate that for each individual. And the last one, which is my favorite one, is build community. So connecting with other peers who share differing body image journeys and then reminding you that you're not alone in transforming how you approach body. 

Natalia 
Absolutely. That's awesome. So, what strategies or resources does BP KSU offer for students struggling with body image issues or even disordered eating? 

Danielle 
Yeah, we have a lot of resources for that. So, one is meeting one-on-one with a registered dietitian or meeting one-on-one with a therapist if you have concerns and you want an individualized action plan. We also have the HEAL team, which stands for Healthy Eating And Living. If you just need additional support, that allows your care team to communicate and help you with whatever you need. We also have different workshops and book clubs.  We’re getting ready to start a book club today, reading two different books about body image, and then in the spring, we do our workshop. So that's a four to eight-week series that has videos, activities, and discussion, and I think that really plays into the build community competency because. You can't do it alone. Having some of that vulnerability just strengthens those connections, and then we also have Love Your Body week in the spring and then throughout the semester we do intermittent tabling and presentations.  

Natalia 
Absolutely. All of these are included with our student fees. We can just come out to. 

Danielle 
Of course.  

Natalia 
Oh, that's awesome. What are some common misconceptions about body positivity and how can dietitians help clarify these for students? 

Danielle 
The body-positive movement has been around since the 1960s, and it was started from the work of marginalized individuals. And so currently, there are a lot of influencers who have Co-opted body positivity and use it to push certain products or advocate for weight loss, but body positivity can exist for any person, at any size, whatever you look like; it's not something that has to be earned by reaching a certain appearance. Dietitians can help students work through these body image issues by educating them on the fact that body image is a spectrum, some days we feel great, some days we feel like bridge trolls, and some days it's somewhere in between and. Working with students to build those tools on ‘How can we navigate those days that are not so great?’ And another component to that is making sure that they are staying nourished while they are navigating that because sometimes the automatic thought might be, ‘I don't like the way I look. I'm going to go on a diet.’ Maybe not. We can navigate that to make sure that you are feeling the best that you can in the process. 

Natalia 
Absolutely. And I know for me, I constantly see a lot of social media and influencers who do kind of push to look this way, or ‘you can look like me by doing this’ and it's not good for your body. So I think it's awesome. Now, you have these resources for students as well. So thank you for that. Thank you so much for your insights, Danielle. You've given us a lot to think about in terms of this issue. To wrap up, what advice do you have for students who want to get involved with Body Positive KSU or advocate for body positivity at KSU? 

Danielle 
Yeah, so I definitely recommend attending some of those events. They're all going to be in Owl Life, but if you want any more specifics then we have it on our website, which is wellness.kennesaw.edu or emailing wellctr@kennesaw.edu. 

Natalia 
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for that. And that concludes our conversation for today. I'd like to thank Danielle Southern again, a registered dietitian in the Health Promotion and Wellness office, for joining us for such an insightful conversation about body positive KSU. For those listening, please do not hesitate to reach out to Wellbeing@KSU for any support needs and to give suggestions on topics you'd like to learn more about. If you're ever interested in learning more about how to build awareness, knowledge, and skills about mental health and suicide prevention, please register for one of our free mental health trainings and for more information, please visit. The Wellbeing@KSU website at kennesaw.edu/wellbeing or you can send an e-mail to wellctr@kennesaw.edu.