September 2022 – In collaboration with Body Happy Org, on September 12th, 2022, we launched a fully resourced information pack for parents, caregivers, and schools to enable making an informed decision about whether to involve your child or school in the National Child Measurement Programme. Download the free pack here.

April 2021 –  AnyBody member and Trustee, and Research Associate at The Centre for Appearance Research, Sharon Haywood joined Nadia Cradock, Research Fellow at the Centre for Appearance Research and Becky Young, Founder of Anti Riot Diet Club, to discuss the government’s response to the Women and Equalities Committee’s inquiry, “Changing the perfect picture: an inquiry into body image”, via Instagram live. Watch a full recording of the discussion here. 

July 2020 – AnyBody submitted written evidence and recommendations to the Women and Equalities Committee’s inquiry, “Changing the perfect picture: an inquiry into body image”. Our report included four key areas for change; Diversity in the Media, Healthcare and Weight Stigma, National Child Measurement Programme and Food Labeling in Schools. The Women and Equalities Committee included our evidence in their final report, which was published in April 2021.

October 2020 – AnyBody collaborated with Anti Diet Riot Club, Laura Thomas, PhD and Nadia Craddock, Research Fellow at Centre for Appearance Research, to publish an open letter to the UK Government, calling for them to re-think their ‘New Ob*esity Strategy’ and ‘Better Health’ campaign (following COVID-19), because we were concerned these campaigns would cause more harm than good. The letter garnered the official support of senior academics, researchers, doctors, registered nutritionists and dieticians, therapists and charities specialising in public health, weight bias, eating disorders, body image and health equity. Read the letter here.

January-March 2019 – AnyBody’s Rebecca Gardiner started a ‘Fat is a Feminist Issue’ London group in which people came together to discuss AnyBody convenor, Susie Orbach’s, book of the same name. A small group of women found a safe space in which to explore their relationship to food and eating and the task of navigating diet culture over the period of three months.

February 2 2019 – We hosted a screening of Fattitude, a US documentary about fat activism, fat phobia, and the experience of being fat in the current climate at the Everyman cinema in Kings Cross. The documentary screening was attended by approximately 70 people and was followed by a panel discussion, which was live-streamed. Panelists were well-known UK fat activists, including Stephanie Yeboah, Tara Louise, Dr Angela Meadows, Stacy Bias, and Sofie Hagen. Each panelist donated their time for free. A recording of the event can be found here.

March 8 2019 – On International Women’s Day, AnyBody’s Louisa Harvey represented AnyBody at a panel discussion for a ‘Celebrating Women in Fitness’ event alongside a body-positive personal trainer and a dietitian. The event was attended by a group of approximately 15 women. 

January 2018 – AnyBody delivered a workshop to student midwives at Plymouth University. 

September 2018 – AnyBody delivered a workshop to student midwives at London South Bank University. 

October 2018 – AnyBody delivered a workshop to students at Kennicott Sixth Form College in Totnes. 

November 2018 – AnyBody members, Rebecca Gardner and Dinah Gibbons, presented at the “Feminism in Schools” conference for students and school staff at Deptford Green School. 

December 2018 – AnyBody delivered workshops for student midwives at Cantebury Christ Church University at Canterbury campus and Medway campus. 

December 2018 – The Surgery is Not a Game campaign was hailed a success at the end of 2018 with Apple removing all of the offending apps and the petition having garnered over 153,000 signatures.

January 2017 – AnyBody UK is part of the wider AnyBody international campaign ‘Surgery Is Not A Game’ petitioning Apple, Google and Amazon to bring in a policy that regulates cosmetic surgery games aimed at children. Holli Rubin is the petition starter for the UK chapter of the campaign. 

March 1 2017 – AnyBody delivered two workshops for Leeds Beckett University Body Image Awareness Week, led by Holli Rubin, Dinah Gibbons and Lily Edlin. The AnyBody “Occupy Your Body” workshops explore women’s relationship with our bodies in the context of media, capitalism, food and family.

March 2017 – Holli Rubin gave a talk in York called ‘Body Image Psychology’.

March 11 2017 –  AnyBody activists, Roanna Mitchell, Louisa Harvey, Holli Rubin and Jo Harrison facilitated a discussion event as part of the WoW Festival at the Southbank Centre in London, talking about the pitfalls and joys of body activism, and encouraging people to think about ways of making change in 2017. 200 people attended the event.

May 2017 – On May 22, 2017, AnyBody activists Louisa Harvey, Jo Harrison and Roanna Mitchell led a workshop, “Your Body is Not the Problem” at the University of Kent, which explored the relationship between body image/body identity, politics, and everyday life.

June 2017 – Holli Rubin gave a talk entitled ‘Body Image’ at Wimbledon High School.

August 2017 – Jo Harrison host creative drop in sessions with My Body Back, an organisation which helps women who have experienced sexual violence to reclaim their bodies and sexuality. Jo’s session focussed on meditative drawing and pattern making using stylised vulva-inspired motifs. Participants created prints and jewellery along with mental health professionals in Shh! Store in Hoxton.

September 2017 – Holli Rubin gave a talk titled ‘Exam pressure and how to support children and their parents’ at Clapham and Fulham. 

October 2017 – AnyBody’s member Dinah Gibbons was co-founder of BodyKind Festival, the first festival of body acceptance worldwide, held in Totness in October 2017. Taking place over three days and multiple venues, the festival included talks, workshops and performances, and involved artists and activists from across the country. AnyBody held an Occupy Your Body workshop on the final day of the festival; and AnyBody’s Amy Godfrey performed her one-woman show ‘The Biscuit Chronicles’, and AnyBody’s Jo Harrison was graphic illustrator for the event.

November 2017 – AnyBody’s Dinah Gibbons and Rebecca Gardiner provided two interactive workshops for the Feminism in Schools conference, which looked at relationships to one’s body, where one’s beliefs about acceptable bodies come from, the impact these have, and what can be done to challenge those beliefs. The age of participants ranged from 11 to 50 years, comprising secondary school-aged children, their parents and teachers.

February 2016 – Victoria Chetley, AnyBody UK member, ran an Occupy Your Body workshop for students at Leeds Beckett University as part of their Body Image and Eating Disorders Awareness week.

September to December 2016 – The first intensive training groups with health workers involved with pre and post-partum mothers is run as a response to Susie & Holli’s paper ‘Two for the Price of One’. This project, supported by the Burdett Trust, has enabled members of AnyBody UK to work with a variety of groups and continues to run. AnyBody is deeply grateful to the Burdett Trust for making this work possible.

November 2016 – As part of WOW Bradford, Victoria Chetley, member of AnyBody UK, was on the I Am Perfect As Me Panel which took place at Bradford Cathedral.

On February 25, 2015, AnyBody UK along with the seven other AnyBody/Endangered Bodies chapters launched an international petition asking Facebook to remove its body-shaming emoticons, “I feel fat” and “I feel ugly”. Vicky Chetley and Charlotte King, AnyBody UK members, were the spokespeople and petition starters representing AnyBody/Endangered Bodies UK.

On March 10, 2015, Facebook responded to our international petition by removing the “I feel fat” emoticon!

On April 18, 2015 Jo Harrison, AnyBody UK member, participated in a panel discussion about body image at the Woman Up Festival in Brighton.

January 2014 – In reaction to the abuse World Champion and Olympic medalist Beth Tweddle received about her appearance during a live Q&A on SkyNews, AnyBody UK created the hashtag #respectsportswomen to show support and solidarity for female athletes everywhere. 

February 2014 – The AnyBodyUK social media team rallied support on Twitter and successfully persuaded Sainsbury’s to stop selling a “You Look Thin” birthday card.

March 2014 – On the 9th of March 2014 as part of the Women of the World festival, AnyBody UK hold a workshop in the Clore Ballroom of the Southbank Centre in London with over 200 participants. The topic: ‘The Personal is still political: Will you occupy your body?’

May 2014 – On the 17th of May, AnyBody UK’s tour of workshops continues with a session at Bristol’s Festival of Ideas. 

June 2014 – AnyBody UK members Susie Orbach and Holli Rubin author a report commissioned by the UK Government Equalities Office on the impact of body image during and after pregnancy called “Two for the Price of One.” Both the Royal College of Midwives and The National Childhood Trust have endorsed the report, and various media outlets such as The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Mirror, and The London Evening Standard have covered its release. 

June 16 2014 – AnyBody members, Alisa Berry-Ryan, Jo Harrison and Roanna Mitchell deliver an “Occupy your Body” workshop at The Spark in London, which explored women’s relationship with their bodies in the context of media, capitalism, food and family.

October 2014 – Susie Orbach chairs UK government seminar on violence, body image, homophobia and bullying. In other words, all form of violence against women.

October 16 2014 – Susie Orbach, convenor of AnyBody UK, wins the Body Confidence Campaigner award at Body Confidence Awards at House of Commons. Holli Rubin, AnyBody member, accepts the award on Susie’s behalf. 

October 18 2014 – AnyBody UK’s Artistic Director, Roanna Mitchell was invited to speak at the TEDx Warwick Salon on Identity, where she delivered her powerful talk, “On Body Hatred and Why Magic Wands Don’t Work”.

October 19 2014 – In reaction to discovering Facebook’s emoticons, “I feel fat” and “I feel ugly”, AnyBody hosts a Twitter party not only to call out the body-shaming emojis, but to open up a discussion about the demonisation of fat.

December 3 2014 – On December 3, 2014, AnyBody UK and the Centre for Appearance Research release “Costing the Invisible: A review of the evidence examining the links between body image, aspirations, education and workplace confidence”. The report was commissioned and funded by the British Government Equalities Office.

December 4 2014 – On December 4, 2014, AnyBody UK hosted a Shape Your Culture workshop and panel event at The Old Courthouse in Brighton. Speakers included Caroline Lucas MP, artist Sarah Maple, Angela Towers (No More Page 3), Nimko Ali (Anti-FGM Activist) and Laura Dodsworth (Bare Reality Project).

January 2013 – In January 2013, we contributed to the evidence gathered as part of a review of the Regulation of Cosmetic Interventions.

March 9 2013 – The Shape Your Culture project, created by AnyBody UK, ran a market stall at the Southbank Centre’s World of Women Festival for International Women’s day.

March 10 2013 – The AnyBody UK team ran a workshop at the Southbank Centre’s Women of the World Festival for International Women’s day. The workshop was titled ‘She Said What!? Women’s Bodies Shaped By Words’ and invited participants to discuss and challenge the damaging ways in which we talk about our own and each others’ bodies.

April 2013 – Susie Orbach and Holli Rubin met with the Right Honourable Jo Swinson to explore creating a plan to train midwives and health visitors on how to address body image issues in new mothers.

January 2012 – On January 16, 2012 the AnyBody UK team held a Ditching Dieting protest outside of Parliament and participated in the All Party Parliamentary Group Body Image Inquiry into the diet and cosmetic industries. AB members provided testimony to the Parliamentary Committee: Susie Orbach presented at the Diet and Cosmetic Industries hearings, and Sue Thomason presented at the Magazine hearing. 

February 2012 – On February 29, 2012 Susie Orbach, convenor of AnyBody, delivered a chilling speech during the UN Commission on the Status of Women at the event Body Image in the Media: Using Education to Challenge Stereotypes in New York City.

March 2012 – During WORDfest Crawley, as part of the community events programme, AnyBody led a Body Confidence workshop with a group of 6th Form Psychology students at Thomas Bennett Community College, who were really thoughtful, engaged and brave. Discussing how we feel about our bodies can be difficult as most people, girls especially are under a great deal of pressure to conform and obsess over their looks constantly. We are happy to say that although everyone had their hang-ups, the discussions and opinions of a such a well-informed group of young people was heartening.

April 2012 – On April 19, 2012, members of the AnyBody team participate as judges in the UK’s first annual Body Confidence Awards at the House of Commons, alongside representatives from B-eat, the Centre for Appearance Research, All Walks Beyond the Catwalk, Mumsnet, the Central YMCA and MP Jo Swinson.

June 2012 – ROSA, the UK Fund for Women and Girls, awards AnyBody/UK Endangered Bodies a substantial grant in order to deliver the Shape Your Culture project to girls and young women that will fire them up to take charge of their personal bodies and to become advocates for transforming visual culture to represent their desires, their aspirations and their diverse beauties and talents.

July 2012 – On July 23, 2012, Stephanie Heart, the principal designer for the AnyBody UK team, received the Rising Star Award at the House of Lords.

February 2011 – AnyBody launches the Endangered Species movement in the UK with a billboard campaign in collaboration with DIVA magazine, Red C Agency and Clear Channel International. The purpose of the billboard campaign was to communicate the Endangered Species’ message: save future generations of women and girls from hating their own bodies.

March 2011 – Endangered Species Summit was an international summit that launched in March 2011 in major cities throughout the world. The aim is to save future generations of girls from the misery that turns women against their own bodies. The challenge? To make people understand how and why this is an emergency, to show them how they can do something about it, and to inspire them to embrace change.

At the London Summit, individuals and groups from the UK and Ireland were joined by initiatives throughout Europe and abroad to showcase the work they are already doing with and about young women – from projects in schools, colleges and communities to web-based groups and campaigning organisations. Performance, videos and artwork framed the day and underlined the urgent message of this summit.

November 2011 – Launch of the Ditching Dieting campaign at a SpeakOut during the 2012 UK Feminista conference.

2000 – Susie Orbach is a key participant in a UK summit, which targeted the editors, advertisers, and affiliates of the fashion industry to take responsibility for the rising rates of anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. Other participants include Liz Jones, editor of the British Marie Claire and the Minister for Women, Tessa Jowell. The result was a pledge for self-regulation, which left much more work to be done. 

2002 – Susie published On Eating and convenes a group to campaign for body diversity, which became AnyBody. The first actions were to produce a report “Costing the Invisible” mapping the socio-economical impact of the troubled body and set up a website to be an information resource.

2003 – Susie Orbach gave evidence to the Parliamentary Committee on Obesity and participated in the Vienna City Government Body Image Summit. The AnyBody group is officially formed with Susie Orbach as convenor. 

June 2005 – Susie Orbach is invited to work with Dove and helped change an advertising campaign into a mission: the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. 

August 2006 – The updated AnyBody website creates a space for comment and connection to challenge the dominant visual culture.

October 2006 – AnyBody reached out to to Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, following his statement that he will withdraw London Fashion Week funding if they continue to use underweight models. We suggested an alternative positive initiative for the funding and local fashion designers. 

January 2007 – We kick off our ‘MAKE BODY HATRED SO LAST SEASON’ fashion campaign and our Model Size Diversity campaign to get more variety of model sizes on to catwalks.

February 2007 – Anybody holds a flash protest outside London Fashion Week. Watch a clip from it here. 

July 2007 – The Model Health Inquiry interim report put pressure on the British Fashion Council to set industry standards on behalf of models but not enough is done. AnyBody’s petition calling for body diversity on the catwalks of London Fashion Week continues.

October 2007 – One of AnyBody’s goals is to bring a case against Weight Watchers as one example of where the diet industry knowingly exploits the aesthetic ideal of slenderness. It has plenty of evidence that dieting does not help people maintain weight loss.

2008 – Susie Orbach presents at the Vienna Body Image Summit as a keynote speaker.

February 2009 – After bestsellers such as Fat is a Feminist Issue and On Eating, Susie Orbach releases her eleventh book, Bodies.

March 2010 – AnyBody joins forces with the Campaign for Body Confidence. On International Women’s Day 2010, Susie Orbach, leading academics, politicians and members of the media and fashion industries participated in a panel discussion in the Houses of Parliament, debating the way forward to combat body image pressure on women and girls imposed by idealised images in the modern media.

April 2010 – Girl Guides in the UK survey over 1200 girls between the ages of 7 and 21, and discover just how unhappy and dissatisfied they are with and in their bodies.