The Be Body Positive Fundamentals
Home Study Course
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Whether you’re struggling with your own body image or you’re a mental health/wellness professional looking for new resources to support your clients, this is the course for you!
Imagine receiving inspiration and practical tools to transform your relationship to your body, food, and exercise in an empowering way that will also give you confidence to become a positive role model to your clients, family, and the people you care about.
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The 5 Competencies of our Be Body Positive Model have helped more than one million people in 44 states and 34 countries to have a more positive relationship with their bodies.
“I, as a woman of color, was struggling with my own eating disorder. I needed to learn how to love myself and my body freely and authentically.
From the tools I learned with The Body Positive I was able to love myself, and not only offer The Body Positive’s tools to my daughters, but to the community around me, helping to acknowledge and demystify the myths that we have around eating disorders. And so, with The Body Positive, I am a woman of color who is now standing firmly, freely, and authentically in all that I am.”
—Marissa Saunders, DEI Consultant
“Before finding The Body Positive, I was so filled with anxiety over my body and weight and feelings of self-hatred. The course exceeded my expectations.
During and after, I was able to find relief from the pain I was carrying. I entered a space of pure love, self-compassion, joy, and awareness. I learned and have deepened my knowledge about food justice and the racism and elitism of a fatphobic culture. I am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to take this course. I hope this work multiplies, keeps changing lives, and spreads love all over the world.”
-Tere Bertucci
The physical health and mental well-being of millions of people around the world are being undermined every day by how they are treated because of their physical appearance (e.g., weight, skin color, hair texture and style).
Is this happening to you or the people you love or work with?
Appearance-based discrimination can cause body dissatisfaction, which for many people triggers a wide range of negative emotions, including anxiety, depression, and self-loathing, as well as physical conditions such as life-threatening eating disorders, substance abuse, relationship violence, self-harm, and suicide.1
In the United States alone, 45 million people, ages 10 and up, experienced dissatisfaction with their bodies in 2019.1 That number greatly increased during the global COVID-19 pandemic.2
The good news is that our 5-module home study course was developed to educate anyone who wants to have a more peaceful relationship with their body, food, and movement, and help others do the same. This course will give you inspiration and practical tools to help you:
- Recognize and resist the harmful messages you receive that keep you in a conflicted relationship with your body
- Redefine health in a way that supports your unique self-care needs
- Pursue self-care practices that are sustainable and health-promoting—and bring more joy and fun into your life!
- Treat yourself with kindness while learning how to soothe your critical voice
- Understand and experience beauty in a completely new way
- Embrace the value of positive community and the important role it plays in your relationship with your body, food, and movement
“If it weren’t for the self-love ideology that is the foundation of The Body Positive, I would not be the emotionally and physically healthy man I am today.”
—Bill Marzolla, Personal Trainer
The Be Body Positive Fundamentals
Home Study Course
This is a training opportunity in the privacy of your own home to learn new skills to support your physical and emotional self-care, which will also help you help the people around you who are struggling.
Our Fundamentals course takes you through The 5 Competencies of the Be Body Positive Model that will provide the foundation to your body liberation journey.
- Reclaim Health
- Practice Intuitive Self-Care
- Cultivate Self-Love
- Declare Your Own Authentic Beauty
- Build Community
This training includes videos with a multitude of diverse perspectives as well as a variety of media (videos, worksheets, handouts, audio meditations) to support your Body Positive journey.
You’ll learn how to transform your relationship with your body, trust yourself and your wisdom, and increase your ability to help others in a very deep way. And it WORKS. It provides lasting, proven results, but don’t take our word for it.
Stanford, Cornell, and the University of Pennsylvania have all completed studies which have shown a significant increase in participants’ body satisfaction, self-compassion, and self-esteem after engaging with The 5 Competencies.
STUDY #1
Stanford University research indicated that the Be Body Positive Model significantly reduced shape/weight control beliefs, body surveillance, and internalization of the thin ideal, while also significantly increasing body satisfaction. All of these changes were sustained by participants at 8 months post-intervention.
STUDY #2
Cornell University research showed that the Be Body Positive Model significantly increased body appreciation, self compassion, and intuitive eating while significantly decreasing an internalization of the thin ideal and disordered eating. All of these changes were sustained by participants at 3 months post-intervention.
STUDY #3
University of Pennsylvania revealed that prior to exposure to the Be Body Positive Model (BBPM), high school participants had low self-esteem and negative body image. After only five weeks of BBPM workshops, 92% of participants self-reported feeling more content in their bodies and having greater self-esteem.
Our Be Body Positive community shares the same sentiment—these tools last a lifetime! No matter how long you or the people you work with have struggled with diet culture and body shame, our Model offers tools and inspiration to access the agency needed to unplug from the harmful systems that cause suffering. Our work allows people to tune in to the freedom to be themselves, authentically.
“I was a theater kid. Being measured for costumes before every production was a quarterly reminder that my body was flawed, and I wasn’t good enough.
My preoccupation with my body led me to spend my high school and college summers focused on extreme weight loss, always gaining it back the following year as my body fought desperately to recover from extreme caloric deprivation and over-exercise. With each school year, I lost more confidence, my worth perpetually hanging more and more on the size of my body and my inability to control it.
When I finally got involved with The Body Positive at the age of thirty-one, I went through a serious grieving process. I’d spent my twenties just as lost as I was during my teenage years. I couldn’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if I’d had a Body Positive group in high school or college. What would I have chosen to do with my summers? What growth and exploration did I miss out on because I was so focused on attaining my ‘dream body’? Our time on this earth is precious. Now that you know this training exists, don’t wait! Take it!“
—Naomi Finkelstein, Yoga Teacher and
Wellness Coach
Here Are The Details Of What You’ll Learn In Each Module
art by Sreoshi Sarkar
Module 1: Reclaim Health
- Create a new definition of health that focuses on useful health markers, leaving weight and size out of the equation.
- Understand the problematic, oppressive history behind the BMI, and learn how to release the pressure to force your body into the “right” category.
- Understand how your intersecting identities (gender, race, age, size, etc.) impact your relationship with and experience in your body and learn how to be resilient in the face of size discrimination.
- Learn how to take action in the doctor’s office, advocating for yourself and others.
- Learn to stop fighting against your natural body size by understanding that you inherited it from your ancestors, and it’s not simply a result of the choices you make.
Module 2: Practice Intuitive Self-Care
- Learn to get in touch with your body’s needs and wants, letting go of diet culture’s rules as you make choices about food.
- Embrace movement as an opportunity to feel strong and increase mental and metabolic health, releasing the focus on exercising to lose weight or look a certain way.
- Get in touch with that deep sense of intuition, which can guide you not only in food and exercise choices that feel good for you, but in all sorts of day-to-day and life decisions.
- Release negative associations with pleasure and embrace it as a crucial tool to help guide your self-care choices.
Module 3: Cultivate Self-Love
- Practice turning the love you give to others to yourself, because you understand that self-love is not about liking yourself (or what you look like) all the time, but rather a powerful, healing resource you can turn to again and again when life gets tough.
- Learn how to communicate with and understand your critical voice, and how to turn towards it with love rather than running away from it.
- Learn to access more compassion, forgiveness, and humor as you work with the painful parts of yourself, many influenced by deeply entrenched messaging.
- Practice gentleness and asking for help, as you learn to treat yourself as someone deserving of softness, love, respect, and help – just like those around you.
Module 4: Declare Your Own Authentic Beauty
- Redefine beauty to include yourself, and to include more than what you look like, as you resist the mainstream definition of beauty that is based on exclusive (and often racist) ideals.
- Free your energy from worrying about your appearance, making room for your own authentic desires and aspirations.
- Learn to see your body as part of the natural world, and allow your unique differences to give you the sense of awe and wonder.
- Honor your body as your precious home passed down from many, many ancestors.
Module 5: Build Community
- Foster community that builds you up and reflects back to you all of the unique qualities and beauty you possess. Surround yourself with people who will celebrate your good times with you and support you through life’s inevitable difficulties.
- Connect with other folks in the body positive/body liberation movement, so you can learn from and teach others doing this work alongside you.
- Learn to let yourself be vulnerable and honest with the people in your life so that you can have space to talk about the challenges you face in relation to your body and other life issues.
- Rework your social media feeds to remove accounts and content that promote diet culture and anti-fat bias, and bring in more accounts that uplift and inspire you by celebrating diverse bodies and body positivity.
Here’s How It Works
After you register for the course you will be emailed a link connecting you to The Body Positive Institute. Once you create your account, you’ll have instant access to the training. You can take this course at your own pace (you’ll have 4 months access from your registration date).
In each of the 5 modules, you’ll find experiential activities, 4-5 video trainings, 1-2 guided audio meditations, handouts, and worksheets you can complete in your own time. By taking the Fundamentals, you’ll start to embody the Competencies yourself and receive abundant resources to help others around you on this journey.
11.5 Continuing Education Hours are available for master’s-level therapists and registered dietitians. Although you can take the course for your own personal use as well.
“I attribute a great part of the healing I have been able to do with my body to The Body Positive.
I was fortunate to have this beautiful community of self-loving and self-respecting individuals when I needed them. The Competencies reach everyone with a body and are indeed needed in this society that teaches us to live with the ideology of ‘the grass is always greener’ in regard to our bodies.”
—Dr. Lily Stokely, N.D.
—Pilar Marin, Masters in Public Health Nutrition
How Much Is the Training?
We’ve taken our 25+ years of expertise and experience personally working with folks around the globe and turned it into this powerful and easy-to-access home study course for you.
Get direct access to our Be Body Positive Fundamentals Home Study Course today for just $149.
We’re so sure you’ll like our course that we always offer a 30-day money back guarantee!
Please keep in mind, this training is not for everyone. The Be Body Positive Fundamentals training is life changing, but it’s not always the perfect solution.
This is for you if you…
- want to be more excited, have more energy, more joy, and more peace (doesn’t mean life is perfect and you won’t ever suffer, but you will have access to more!)
- want tools you can use over your lifetime as your body changes and you go through different development stages whether that’s having a baby, or raising kids, or aging
- want to feel more confident in your work helping others love their bodies
- want to improve your own relationships with your body for yourself and for helping others
- want to be a role model of body love
- want to gain tools to help your clients
- have an eating disorder and are in recovery
- are motivated to have more peace with your body
Life is SO SHORT, no matter how long you live. To have a more peaceful relationship with your body and to connect with your intuition will provide a richer, deeper, happier life. With so much happening in the world right now, this is a potent time to be authentic, awake, and alive.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is This Program Right For Me?
I’m a clinician. Is this course right for me?
Yes! This course offers clinicians The 5 Competencies of our Be Body Positive Model, which have been used in both the treatment and prevention of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction. Master’s-level therapists and registered dietitians will receive 11.5 Continuing Education Hours. For more information, contact courses@thebodypositive.org.
I’m an individual looking to help myself. Is this course right for me?
Absolutely! The Fundamentals course was created to help individuals who are struggling with eating and body image issues. You won’t need to take the quiz at the end of the course (unless you want to) and you won’t receive CE hours. The course is for all who want to enhance their relationship with their body, self-love, and self-care.
Should I be learning about body positivity or is body neutrality the better way to go?
There’s a lot of confusion currently about what body positivity is, because of the larger body positive movement. The Body Positive was created 28 years ago, with the goal to help people have a positive relationship with themselves. It doesn’t mean that every day we love our bodies. But it does mean that we are moving in a direction to love ourselves. We believe that we can love a body that gives us life and we understand that that can be hard to do in this diet and weight loss culture. Yet the practice of loving ourselves can deepen who we are. We don’t want to be neutral about anything in life! Yes, start with neutral, and then continue the process of the work to get to real love, not perfect love, but flawed love.
Don’t parts of the body positivity movement exclude certain groups of people, will this course be for me?
The Body Positive does not exclude anybody. We invite every person to share their body story and we honor them exactly how they are, with their unique life experiences, so there is no exclusion. We recognize that corporations and certain influencers have co-opted parts of this powerful movement in order to sell products and services. In the process, they have corrupted the message. For us, there is no right way to be Body Positive. There are as many ways to be body positive as there are individuals on the planet.
How Does This Course Work For Clinicians?
What are CE Hours? Should I get them?
CE Hours are Continuing Education Hours that treatment providers require in order to keep their licenses up to date. At this time, we offer them for Master’s-level therapists and registered dietitians. If you don’t hold one of these professional licenses, we are unable to provide you with CE Hours. However, you if you don’t need CE Hours, you can still take the course for your own personal and/or professional development.
Who provides CE Hours and who are they for?
The Body Positive is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) Accredited provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). Our CDR provider number is ABB6426. CDR Credentialed Practitioners are responsible for choosing a learning need code (LNC) for this course that best meets their individual goals. We currently provide CE Hours for Master’s-level therapists and registered dietitians.
Will I receive a license or certification upon completion of the course?
You will receive your certificate of completion with 11.5 CE Hours applicable to a Master’s-level therapist or registered dietitian once you finish 100% of the course, fill out the evaluation, and score at least 80% on the course’s final quiz. Once all these steps are complete, you will be eligible to receive your certificate with CE Hours. The instructions are spelled out in the About the Course section of the course. You will be able to bring this material into your work, but not be licensed to teach this to groups. If you are interested in becoming a licensed Be Body Positive Facilitator this is the first of two trainings to complete so you can teach our comprehensive, research-based curriculum to groups.
Do I have more than one chance to complete the quiz?
If you don’t pass the quiz on your first three tries, send us an email at courses@thebodypositive.org and we’ll allow you to take it again by resetting the quiz.
Can I share the activities I learn in these courses with my clients?
You are welcome to share the worksheets from the Fundamentals course with your clients if you are willing to honor our copyright information on each handout.
Once I take The Fundamentals how do I access more advanced clinical training?
With the Fundamentals you are already halfway through the Be Body Positive Facilitator course! You can complete this training online in order to become licensed to teach the Be Body Positive group curriculum. You’ll receive a $149 discount on the Facilitator Training fee because you’ve taken this course. Once you’ve finished The Fundamentals, you can email courses@thebodypositive to get your discount coupon (you’ll receive a reminder email when you finish the course). The Fundamentals are also the prerequisite for entering the Big Hearted Embodiment (BHE) training with The Body Positive’s Co-Founder Elizabeth Scott. For more information on BHE training, go to elizabethscottresources.com.
“Coming into The Body Positive training I was eager to learn new tools and perspectives to provide my clients who struggle with body image.
What I gained was not only that, but so much more. I created a kinder connection and trust with my own body, and a skillset to forever share with my clients. As an eating disorder dietitian, I had limited education and training around body image, and the training changed that significantly for me. I’m so grateful to Elizabeth and Connie for sharing their wisdom and working together to help us acknowledge our body stories.“
—Malak Saddy, Registered Dietitian
Do You Have a Version of The Course That Works For Me?
Is this course available in any languages other than English?
Yes, this course is available in Spanish.
Si, este curso ahora se encuentra disponible en español. Haz click aquí para adquirirlo.
Is your platform mobile-friendly?
Yes! You should be able to access all our content on your mobile device.
Do the courses have accessibility features?
All course videos have closed captioning. There are also written versions of featured audio meditations as well as audio recordings of the handouts. We don’t have audio recordings of worksheets yet, but hope to in the future.
Energy Exchanges:
Do you offer refunds?
If, within 30 days of your purchase, you are unsatisfied with the course, email courses@thebodypositive.org and we will give you a refund.
Can I share my course with others?
We ask that you do not share any of the content in this course, or your login, with other people. As a nonprofit, our courses are our primary source of financial support so we can provide scholarships to low-income individuals for our trainings and workshops, and continue to develop new content. Sharing your login or any downloaded content violates our Terms of Use. That said, we are happy to offer discounts if you’d like to take these courses with a group. Just send us an email at courses@thebodypositive.org for more information.
Are there group discounts available?
Yes. If you’d like to register for our courses as a group, please email courses@thebodypositive.org to get your expanded team discount code.
Do you offer sliding scale pricing?
We offer partial scholarships to individuals who have financial need. Fill out this form and we will respond to your request within 30 days.
I Think I’m Ready To Go For It!
What happens once I sign up?
Once registered, you’ll have access to the course. The first slide will explain how to move through the lessons, watch videos, and download worksheets.
What if I complete the Fundamentals course and decide I want to do the Facilitator Training?
If you are interested in continuing your Body Positive education, you might consider becoming a licensed Be Body Positive Facilitator. Anyone who wants to become licensed to teach our group curriculum can take this course, you don’t have to be an educator or a clinician. If you are a master’s-level therapist or registered dietitian, you will receive 10 additional Continuing Education Hours. You’ve completed Part 1 of the Facilitator Training by taking the Fundamentals. Our group curriculum is available for working with middle school, high school, and college students, as well as with adults. Email us at courses@thebodypositive.org to get your discount coupon for the difference between the course you took and the Facilitator Training, and we’ll get you the registration link for Part 2. By taking the Fundamentals course, you’ll automatically receive an email with more information about this offer.
1Bryn Austin, (2022). The real cost of beauty ideals: The staggering economic and social cost of body dissatisfaction and appearance-based discrimination in the United States. https://www.dove.com/us/en/stories/campaigns/real-cost-of-beauty.html?utm_source=VanityURL&utm_medium=VanityURL&utm_campaign=RealCostofBeauty&utm_id=RCOB%3f
2Toulany, A., Kurdyak, P., Guttmann, A., Stukel, T. A., Fu, L., Strauss, R., Fiksenbaum, L., & Saunders, N. R. (2022). Acute care visits for eating disorders among children and adolescents after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Adolescent Health, 70(1), 42–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.09.025