Today’s youth are bombarded with a constant stream of toxic information about their bodies. Suggestions to hide flaws are everywhere, from the social media they consume to altered celebrity figures and an uptick in ads with artificial people. This “if you want it, buy it” culture offers a standard body and appearance before most youth can learn accurate body functions. Body awareness and, more broadly, health literacy are invaluable as we age. However, as schools, health clinics, and other essential information providers become battlegrounds, ensuring all people, especially children, have the resources they need to understand their bodies is increasingly challenging.
Nancy Redd, New York Times bestselling author, health journalist, on-air host, and mother of two, says current attempts to politicize accurate health information impact our children’s knowledge of how their bodies work, shape self-esteem, and contribute to reduced health literacy in adulthood. (Data supports this.) Her recent work, The Real Body Manual: Your Visual Guide to Health & Wellness, aims to provide a visual guide for young adults of all genders.
Despite being a Harvard-educated women’s studies major, being crowned Miss Virginia in 2003, and competing in Miss America, Redd wasn’t exempt from negative body feelings. “I grew up with a lot of bodily shame. I was a girl living in the South where your vagina was a “hoo-ha,” and you just didn’t talk about anything. There wasn’t that much information available,” she says, reflecting on how a lack of knowledge shaped her relationship with her body.
She wrote the book to offer an image-based “manual” to help youth familiarize themselves with their bodies through puberty and beyond. Chapters cover lighter topics and routines, from the purpose of skin, the largest organ, to how mental health impacts bathing routines and seeking help.
“I would like children to know the names of all their body parts, whether their septum or scrotum,” she says. “I want people to talk about discharge the way they talk about a runny nose—just matter-of-fact.” Some lessons are rarely discussed aloud, like size diversity and the appearance of healthy genitals, what it means to be intersex, and an unbiased explanation of gender identity. Others, such as how to perform a breast or testicular exam, different types of discharge, and descriptions of conditions like premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), can support youth when they’re too embarrassed to start the conversation.
“It begins with eradicating shame from the start and being as direct and informative as possible,” she says, noting the importance of letting youth know that many conditions, from benign ones like freckles to life-threatening ones like cancer, present differently depending on complexion.
Redd remembers how hard it was to use health resources for diagnostic purposes when they didn’t look like her body. To ensure the images were representative, she commissioned a photographer to capture them for The Real Body Manual, which offers diverse subjects across body size, gender, and race and rejects the “ideal body” for an understood one.
The manual supports youth in developing body literacy and agency and prepares them to advocate for themselves in sexuality, healthcare, and life.
“If we could just improve body education, health literacy is at such a low point given how much information we have access to, and it’s because people are terrified,” she says, noting she wants everyone to speak candidly to their doctors about pain and confusion without worrying about being judged. “Keeping it real in a safe, medically accurate environment helps us prepare to speak candidly about pain and confusion without fear of judgment.”
The impact of this is invaluable in Black families, where medical interactions have left a scar on the community. Redd hopes to inspire open, intergenerational, and judgment-free conversations between parents and children. When paired with agency, she sees these exchanges as tools to address health disparities by including diverse representation and medically accurate information.
“Neutralizing the body” away from good/bad binaries begins with plain language conversations with our children. “When children come to you with their innocent questions, respond with understanding and see where it leads,” Redd says. “If more people attempted that, you’d be surprised by the child’s response and how we can all move forward in a more harmonious community.”
