The San Diego State Andrea O’Donnell Womyn’s Outreach Association celebrated Love Your Body Day on Thursday, Nov. 14. The group hosted a carnival-style event at Scripps Cottage with Zumba classes, mural paintings and games to educate students about the female body.

WOA President Kaia Los Huertos said the event was modeled after the national organization’s Love Your Body campaign, which highlights media and social standards for women that can have negative impacts on their happiness or self-esteem.

“I think the biggest thing we do is we teach people about things they normally would not learn and we try to do it as fun as possible,” Los Huertos said. “It brings together a lot of people that don’t normally meet, there’s all sorts of things about loving your body and help people can get that they don’t normally know about and we put it together in fun, colorful ways.”

Los Huertos said this has been the most successful Love Your Body Day in the past three years. At last year’s event, there were only about one-third of the groups tabling.

The organizations supporting the event included SDSU’s Afrikan Student Union, Queer Student Union, Native American Student Alliance, Student Health Services, the School of Nursing, and Counseling and Psychological Services.

WOA Treasurer Melissa Magargal said the goal of the event is to promote the body in a positive way. There were a number of games at the event intended to promote body image and detract from insecurities. WOA also provided information on safe sex.

“By joining this organization, the way I perceive other women has changed a lot,” Magargal said. “A lot of body positivity and female positivity is lacking on campus.”

One of the groups added to the event this year was the nursing program. Program member Emma Lopata said the nursing program found out about the event through the Women’s Health Organization. The program decided to have two teams of nurses working at the event on their community health project, which was to spread breast cancer awareness among women. To do this, the organization set up boards with the different factors and genetics that can cause breast cancer and allowed attendees to take a quiz to find their risk. Depending on each person’s risk levels, WHO gave students the appropriate health information.

“Love Your Body Day is a great event and it is important to spread a positive image on campus,” Lopata said. “There is so much pressure from society and the media. There’s pressure on campus to be thin, tan and blonde, and not all of us on campus are.”

WOA meets 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday’s in the Aztec Mesa 101.

Read about last year’s Love Your Body Day. 

Photo by Jenna Mackey, Staff Photographer