Scholarship Essay Entry – Brittany T.

My name is Brittany and I am currently completing my Individualized Multidisciplinary Masters with a concentration in Kinesiology, at the University of Lethbridge, focusing on socio-cultural barriers to physical activity and consequences of gendered media representations. The future vision I would like to promote would be for young women and girls to have better body image, self-image, and self-esteem. I would also like to promote the accessibility of healthy activities for children of all cultural and racial backgrounds. Media is a significant social institution that can stereotype or discriminate against special-populations and reinforce racial and gender norms. Health, wellness, gender, and media intersect to influence how young girls and women feel about themselves and their abilities and can positively or negatively influence their self-esteem and self-worth. I hope to educate young girls and women on gender stereotypes within popular media images and the possible roads of resistance. I encourage being a critical consumer of health and beauty products and that being healthy means feeling good from the inside-out.

My ambitions to change my community for the good include actively volunteering in my community of High River and Lethbridge with Teen self-esteem and health classes and Peer Support groups. I am active in health promotion and encouraging healthy body image through guest lecturing at elementary, middle, and high schools in both Lethbridge and High River. I have been teaching dance at a local dance studio for six years and I hope that through my dedication and passion to teaching dance, young children will be educated about the importance of health, wellness, positive body image and self-esteem. I hope to improve accessibility of healthy activities to all children through organizing and coordinating free dance workshops for children of all ages and socio-economic status.

I hope to contribute to my community by showing leadership and involvement in both researching and teaching health and wellness. I am currently a teaching assistant at the University of Lethbridge Kinesiology department through media, gender, physical activity and socio-cultural courses. I have also been employed as a research assistant for the Kinesiology department for the University of Lethbridge. Through this research I have learned the barriers to sport participation (gender, race, and cultural orientation) and how funding influences accessibility through the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity. My involvement in research and teaching at the University has increased the knowledge and awareness in the importance of being critical consumers of media representations, advertisements, and possible consequences of these images. I have also presented my research at international conferences where I feel that sharing research is a positive way to gain knowledge, understanding and awareness within academic worldwide communities. My vision is for a united international education program that encourages accessibility of health and physical activity for children of all gender, racial, and socio-economic status. I also hope to educate young girls about the importance of media images and gender stereotypes, in hopes of increasing healthy body-image.