Real beauty painted for a cause

Media Release

Real beauty painted for a cause

Body painting of Love Your Body Thunderpants at The Body Shop

Thursday October, 22 2009

EDEN’s Love Your Body Campaign is out to show that it’s not just skinny girls who get to be models. As the campaign cranks into full gear over October, curvy Auckland administrator Jennifer Brewer is gearing up to be bodypainted in the pear-tree design of the Love Your Body Thunderpants briefs and camisole.

Bodypainter extraordinaire Jane Ellis from Rainbow Rascals will paint Brewer at The Body Shop at Westfield St Lukes in Auckland on Saturday October 24 (11am to 2pm). Come by and check out real beauty painted for a cause!

Brewer, a 27-year-old from Grey Lynn, is excited about being a model for the day. “I feel like I’m about to get a big treat! I truly have no nerves or reservations.”

Brewer’s adamant that she loves her body. “I love my freckles, I love my pale skin, I love my jelly belly and I love my larger-than-life breasts! Too many people fixate on what they consider to be their bodies’imperfections. Elvis had a wonky mouth, Cindy has a mole on her face, Dita is as white as the clouds...and don’t we love them for it!? Everyone is a celebrity in their own skin - they just have to recognise their so called ‘imperfections’ as what truly makes them beautiful and unique.”

Jane Ellis is busy mixing her paints for the day. “It is great to be able to replicate the Thunderpants as it will look realistic and trick the eye so people will do a double take. For me any opportunity to body paint is fabulous, and when I can support a great charity all the better!”

Meanwhile, the real Love Your Body Thunderpants are on sale – in a funky pear-tree design – from October 19-November 2 at The Body Shop, and from now til December via www.eden.org.nz. Green in both colour and production, these New-Zealand-made “undies that don’t go up your bum” are just $25. You can also get a matching camisole.

October is the climax of EDEN’s Love Your Body Campaign. In 2009, the campaign has morphed from a single day to a months-long movement with the support of three new partners: Thunderpants, The Body Shop and Pumpkin Patch.

EDEN Agency Manager Dr Maree Burns, who recently co-edited the book Critical Feminist Approaches to Eating Dis/Orders (Routledge), says EDEN’s Love Your Body Campaign – which turns three this year - is rapidly growing in support and recognition nationwide.

“New Zealanders agree that it’s unacceptable that 80 per cent of New Zealand women are dissatisfied with their bodies, and that up to one in five struggle with disordered eating,” says Burns.

“In a society which idealises thinness, EDEN’s Love Your Body Campaign is a rare opportunity to celebrate and appreciate our bodies as they are, and to acknowledge the beauty of all body shapes and sizes. Body satisfaction and appreciation are key ingredients for building positive body image and self esteem, which in turn help guard against the development of eating difficulties,” says Burns.

Every dollar raised from EDEN’s Love Your Body Campaign will go towards the charity’s early-intervention and prevention services for disordered eating. EDEN (the Eating Difficulties Education Network) is the only specialist NGO provider offering these services in the North Island and (as the government allocates no funding to early intervention or prevention) it receives no public funding for this work. As well as providing information, services and resources to individuals and organisations, EDEN works at a wider social level to promote body trust and satisfaction and size diversity. The agency has been in operation since 1990.

Hi-res Thunderpants images are available. See separate media releases for details of the film screening, and of Thunderpants’, The Body Shop’s and Pumpkin Patch’s involvement with EDEN’s Love Your Body Campaign.

For further information or an interview with Jennifer Brewer, Jane Ellis or Dr Maree Burns or Dena Ashbaugh, please contact myself at slangltd@gmail.com.

For more information about EDEN’s Love Your Body Campaign go to www.eden.org.nz.

*Please refer to this campaign always as “EDEN’s Love Your Body Campaign”.

ENDS

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