Ep.49 How a school curriculum helped teens boost their body satisfaction.

Could understanding your body's natural changes during puberty help you love yourself more? Imagine reducing the urge for cosmetic surgery just by tweaking your mindset! 

A study from South Korea implemented a school curriculum focused on teaching teens to appreciate their bodies. By educating them on normal bodily changes, the effects of hormones, and the pitfalls of social media, they boosted their body satisfaction and self-esteem.

Title of manuscript:
BodyThink program-based body image education improves Korean adolescents’ attitudes toward cosmetic surgery: randomized controlled trial. 
Sung et al. BMC Nursing (2023) 22:481

If you're wondering…
❓ Why are teens hungry all the time during puberty?
❓ Why are teens craving sugar all the time?
❓ Why teens feel so tired—even when they sleep?

You’re not alone—and it’s not your fault.

Hormones play a HUGE role in how teens gain weight, feel energy, manage emotions, and grow.

Dr Gourgari is a certified pediatric endocrinologist, obesity medicine specialist and health coach for teens.

Each week, she break down how puberty hormones work—and how simple habits like eating better, sleeping more, and moving your body can help you feel better, stronger, and more confident.

We’ll talk about things like:
🥗 Are smoothies really healthy?
🍞 Are carbs bad for weight loss in teens?
💪 And how to stop emotional eating before it takes over your day.

Whether you’re a teen ready to make a change—or a parent looking to support your child the right way—this podcast is for you.

🎁 Want to jump in right now?
Grab your free guide: 30 Healthy, High-Protein Recipes for Teens at lifestyleforteens.com/recipes

Transcript

Speaker 2: 1:04

This is the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens podcast. If you're a mom and want to help your child who is struggling to lose weight, you are in the right place. If you are looking for healthy lifestyle tips, dr Gorgery is here to help you understand the science around safe weight loss in teens and children, because what works for adult weight loss is not always the best for children. This podcast is for educational purposes only. Dr Gorgory does not provide medical, psychological or nutrition therapy advice. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problems without consulting your own medical practitioner and now your host, dr Jenny Gorgory.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens podcast. This is your host, dr Jenny Gorgory, and in this episode I decided to talk abouta topic that has to do with body image issues. So we know that body image issues are very common, particularly among teenager girls. However, they can also happen in teenage boys. Now what is a body image issue? That means that, even though you may be at a normal weight, you can look at your body and feel extreme dissatisfaction. You can also be unhealthy weight whether your weight is too much or whether your weight is too little and still feel very unsatisfied with your body image. Now why is having a healthy image important? It is important to have a healthy body image, especially as a teenager, because if you don't like your body, you're more likely to have unhealthy habits, and by unhealthy habits I mean that you may have excessive eating and then vomiting, excessive eating and then vomiting, or you may starve yourself and then don't eat as much calories as you want to eat. So oftentimes these unhealthy behaviors happen because boys and girls during teenage years, they don't like their body and they feel dissatisfied, and that leads them to having these unhealthy behaviors. So what is the solution to that. The solution is one way we can tackle this is by learning and by teaching our teenagers healthy ways to love their body. And is this possible? Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 3:34

There are many programs available, and today I wanted to present an excellent study that was done in South Korea where, basically, they went in school and they had a certain curriculum available where they taught children in school different topics that had to do how to learn to love their body. So, for example, do how to learn to love their body. So, for example, here are some methods that they used in the school to educate teenagers how to love their body. They taught them about what are the normal characteristics, what are the normal changes that the body goes through once they go into puberty. They also presented them with normal data on how it feels. What are the normal alterations in testosterone and estrogen? What do those hormones cause to your body? They also explained what is self-esteem and really having confidence. And having self-esteem has not much to do necessarily with how many kilos you are, and being in a better position to feel good where you are will increase your chances of getting where you want right.

Speaker 1: 4:54

They also talked about the importance of this social media bombardism that there is a lot of idealization of thinness on social media and it's often extreme. Often what we see on social media does not represent what really happens in real life. So they improve the way that the kids can see and analyze everything that they see on social media and realize that it's not everything real. Ok, then they help them develop their own standards of what it is that we can call beauty and that they don't. They try them to talk about, like how not to get affected by teasing and what is the effect of teasing from other people on how we feel about ourselves. And I have previous episode that I talked more about the teasing. You can go back and listen to that.

Speaker 1: 5:59

But really, in a summary, we know from studies that were done that when kids are teased by family members, by friends, even though it is for fun or it's supposed to be something innocent, that can have serious consequences in their confidence. So they talk about all those things. They also measure at the beginning and at the end of this teaching how the teenagers felt about their body and how likely they were to go and have cosmetic surgery because they didn't like the body and they wanted to do something about it and they found that the kids that had the intervention in the school well, they learned all those things and they were taught how to build good, positive body image. They have more satisfaction. At the end they were less likely to go and get plastic surgery. An excellent study, very hopeful. The actual title is Body Think Program-Based Body Image Education Improves Korean Adolescents' Attitudes Towards Cosmetic Surgery.

Speaker 1: 7:06

So the take-home message from this study is that we need to teach our teenagers to love their body. That can only improve their self-esteem, their confidence, way before they get into a healthy weight. Like, you don't need to be in a healthy weight to have a good, positive body image and in fact, if you have a good, positive body image, that can help you get to a healthier weight faster and keep it there. You don't need to follow excessive diets, you don't need to take laxatives, you don't need to take diuretics, you don't need to live on 500 calories per day to get to a healthy weight. Those extreme behaviors are often associated with poor body image. So love your bodies, guys. Love where you are today. Okay, you can still improve, you can still get better and you can still get healthier, but one doesn't mean that if you love where you are right now. You cannot get where you want to be. Love yourself throughout the way. I hope this was helpful and I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 2: 8:18

Take care If you enjoyed listening to this podcast. I invite you to come check out the Lyft program. It's Dr Gregory's 12 week coaching program for teens and their moms, where we take all this information, we apply it to your daily life and we work together so your teenager learns how to create a healthy lifestyle so they can feel happier, more confident, less stressed and love their body again. Visit the website at lifestyle for teenscom and click on the work with me and free resources to learn more about this program and get free help to start this journey right away. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode of lifestyle and weight loss for teens.