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Ph.D. Alum Lindsay Kite to Speak at TEDxSaltLakeCity on Body Image Resilience

Lindsay Kite, who earned her master's (2009) and Ph.D. (2013) in the Communication Department, has been invited to speak at TEDxSaltLakeCity on Sept, 9, 2017. Her talk is based on her doctoral research about positive body image, which includes a focus on representation of women in media and how that affects people's perceptions of female bodies. 

Along with her identical twin sister, Lexie Kite, who also earned her master's and doctorate in the department at the same time, Lindsay founded and directs the nonprofit Beauty Redefined. Through online education, advocacy and speaking events all over the U.S., Lindsay and Lexie teach people to recognize and reject harmful messages about beauty and health in order to achieve body image resilience. Their work is founded on the premise that positive body image isn't believing your body looks good; it is believing your body is good, regardless of how it look. 

TEDxSaltLakeCity will be held on the U of U campus at Kingsbury Hall on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. The all-day event will include 15 speakers and 5 performers. Tickets are available through the Kingsbury Hall Box Office here, with significantly discounted student tickets for just $5. 

Updated: November 9th, 2017

MA and PhD alum Lindsay Kite's TEDx talk on her body image resilience research is now available on YouTube! Lindsay and her twin sister, Lexie, graduated with their doctorates from our department in 2013.

During this September 2017 talk at Kingsbury Hall, Lindsay said:

"Girls and women aren’t only suffering because of the unattainable ways beauty is being defined, they’re suffering because they are being *defined by beauty.* They are bodies first and people second.

So, rather than working to sure more women’s bodies are viewed as valuable, we are working to make sure women are valued as more than bodies to view. Our work is founded on the premise that positive body image isn’t believing your body looks good; it is believing your body is good, regardless of how it looks.

We have to learn to see more in ourselves and everyone else. Once we see more, we can be more. More than objects. More than beautiful. More than a body."

 

 

 

 

Last Updated: 9/20/21