Daring models say: 'Don't be a slave to the scales'

DID you know that the average girl is exposed to more body-perfect images in a day than women of previous generations witnessed in their whole adolescence?

Such a statistic is just one reason why Kirsty Poskitt and a group of other North Yorkshire women decided to strip off for a charity fundraiser.

Wearing just swimsuits the group of 22 women aged from their 20s to 60s and of all shapes and sizes took part in a photoshoot in a woodland near Tadcaster.

The images will appear in a charity calendar to raise funds for two organisations – Beat, which supports people with eating disorders, and mental health body Mind.

Mum-of-two Kirsty, who is a wedding videographer, organised the venture as part of her role as an ambassador for the Body Image Movement, a global organisation dedicated to improving the way we think about how we look.

She became involved after watching the acclaimed documentary film Embrace, made by Australian Taryn Brumfitt in which she crosses the globe talking to experts, women in the street as well as celebrities about body image issues.

AMBASSADOR: Kirsty Poskitt, above centre, is passionate about the issue of body confidence

The film hit a chord with Kirsty, whose younger sister Linzi died aged 36 following health complications brought on by 18 years battling the eating disorder anorexia. “My sister had anorexia from the age of 18. It was an awful time of our lives. She was hospitalised and we lost her to complications, her heart was damaged from not nourishing her body.”

Kirsty, aged 42, lost her mum at the same time to breast cancer. She and her elder sister Zoe have done lots of fundraising for cancer charities, but nothing to date to support people suffering from eating disorders or body image issues. “There is a stigma around eating disorders, it is not something people talk about,” says Kirsty.

She was spurred into action by the documentary. “I’ve never felt so moved. The film is incredible and I am surprised it hasn’t been made before.”

It brings home the message we don’t have to be body perfect, adds Kirsty. “No, we don’t have to be a size eight; we don’t have to have no wrinkles; we don’t have to have what the media presents as the perfect body. It moved me beyond words and I wanted to do something.”

That something took place at the weekend, when a group of Kirsty’s friends and acquaintances – who have also been moved by the film – took part in a body-positive photoshoot, wearing just swimwear, with local photographer David Lindsay behind the camera.

Joining Kirsty and sister Zoe for the shoot were a range of different women, all with their own reasons for taking part. Among them was Sarah Frank, aged 40, from York who has terminal breast cancer and has had a double mastectomy. Posing in a blue swimsuit, with her hickman line visible from her chemotherapy treatment, Sarah held a bunch of red balloons in the shape of hearts to signify the month of February. Sarah says the positive message was to “love yourself”.

She said: “Everyone has their own reasons for doing the shoot. When I saw the film it made me think: ‘why all these years have we been worrying about the scales or our dress size? Life is too short. Go out and enjoy yourself’.

BODY POSITIVE: Cancer patient Sarah Frank

“Being diagnosed with incurable breast cancer has been a massive turning point. Life is too short. I am not a conventional size eight, ten or 12 and am never going to be. I am broad shouldered and broad hipped.

“It would take so much effort to get to that size and I would not be well. But I am still going out and walking the dog to keep fit and healthy.

“I have had a double mastectomy and I can’t change that. If I am at war with my body then that is another thing cancer has got. I am not going to beat myself up that I have put on weight because of chemo and steroids.

“I know there are many women out there who have had mastectomies and so it never hurts to put it out there that it is still OK to wear a swimsuit.”

Tadcaster vicar Reverend Canon Sue Sheriff was another model. Sue, aged 54, says she has struggled with body image her whole life and has just recently accepted herself for who she is. “It’s taken me 50 years to get confident in my body. If there is a diet out there I have tried it.”

A series of illnesses and losing a close friend to motor neurone disease made her change her own attitudes. “The final thing was after I had a hysterectomy I suffered a trauma and it finally hit me that my body had been through so much and that it is all right! I don’t need to be a size 12 or 14. I am fine just as I am.”

TAKING PART: Tadcaster vicar Sue Sheriff, far left, with other models at the body confidence charity calendar shoot

Sue, who has one son, said she took part in the project in the hope of sparing other girls and women the burden of a life of yo-yo dieting and unhappiness with their appearance. Appearing as the June image, she wore a green and white swim suit – and her bible. “I am looking forward to seeing all the photographs. It is exciting. Most of the time in photographs I am hiding, but this time I am saying: this is me.”

Kirsty, who is a size 18-20, will appear in the March image, in a bright pink swimsuit doing a yoga pose. She said: “I’ve got big boobs and always have had. I am comfortable with the person that I am.”

The calendar will be on sale at local outlets in Tadcaster before Christmas and from Minster FM (breakfast presenter Ellie Brennan also took part in the shoot).

Meanwhile Kirsty is organising a screening of Embrace on Thursday October 5 at 7.30pm at Riley-Smith Hall, Tadcaster. Tickets cost £5 and are available online from eventbrite.co.uk (search for Embrace screening at Tadcaster). Money raised from screenings will go towards preparing information packs to take into schools.

Kirsty said: “I think everyone should see this film – brothers, sons and husbands too. The message is we don’t have to be slaves to the scales.”