Civic Artifact Speech Outline (A VERY rough draft…changes to come)
Topic: Sheppard Pratt Hospital’s Love Your Tree Campaign
Purpose: To promote positive body image and media literacy in an effort to combat the eating disorder epidemic affecting individuals across the country.
Thesis Statement: Sheppard Pratt’s Love Your Tree campaign attempts to redefine self-perception as a call to action in combatting the eating disorder epidemic by promoting body-positivity and gratitude on college campuses.
Introduction
Attention Strategy: When I was growing up, I was often much taller than my peers. People used to compare me to a tree, a giraffe, a giant, anything they could think of that would describe my height. Back then, it actually hurt; why would someone equate my body to a tree?
Today, I wear the tree of life on a necklace. I received it as a gift when I finished treatment for an eating disorder in August. The tree of life meant a lot to me in treatment, and it still does today. Like a tree, my body is strong and resilient. Like a tree, my body will heal from the damage and stand tall.
Orienting Material: The Love Your Tree campaign, developed by the Sheppard Pratt Center for Eating Disorders, uses a combination of eating disorder research and art therapy concepts to ask individuals to complete the statement: “Like a tree, my body is…” While it is designed to promote positive body image, the campaign is not just for those struggling with disordered eating; body gratitude and media literacy can be beneficial to anyone.
Preview: The use of intrinsic proofs and awareness of the rhetorical situation allows Sheppard Pratt to spread its ideas surrounding the emergent ideology of body-positivity rather than media-conformity.
Body
Main Idea – Sheppard Pratt’s effort to target young people allows their campaign to achieve full effect due to the vulnerability of the selected population.
- With the National Eating Disorders Association reporting that 25% of college-aged males and 32.6% of the female collegiate population struggle with disordered eating, targeting college campuses like Towson University provides the campaign with the exigence and audience necessary to share the mission of the Love Your Tree
- Because of the rising statistics and emergence of body-positive advertising, like #AerieReal and the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, kairos is rhetorically significant in sharing Sheppard Pratt’s message.
- In the video, the Sheppard Pratt staff speaks briefly, but aware of the constraints associated with licensed professionals conveying the message of body-positivity, several students are also interviewed to provide a more relatable perspective on the campaign.
Main Idea – Ethos is not only important to the rhetorical situation, but to the intrinsic proofs surrounding the campaign and promotional video.
- By including explanations about the campaign from eating disorder professionals and interviews with college students participating in the Love Your Tree mission, the audience can better relate to the mission, thus making them more likely to consider the emergent ideology.
- In addition to ethos, pathos is evident in the video through music choice, facial expressions, diversity in people interviewed, and open responses to the statement, “Like a tree, my body is…”
Main Idea – The Love Your Tree campaign is reflective of the emergent ideology of body-positivity and gratitude rather than succumbing to the societal pressure to be “perfect.”
- The movement to redefine the way young people view their bodies is a not only a movement in self-acceptance, but a call of action to our civic duty to promote body-positivity and work to prevent of eating disorders and related mental health issues.
Conclusion
Summary Statement – Sheppard Pratt’s awareness of rhetorical situation, intrinsic proofs, and emergent ideologies fuels its call to action to combat the spread of eating disorders and promote body-positivity through the Love Your Tree campaign.
Concluding Remark – And so, I ask you to finish the sentence: “Like a tree, my body is…” (show picture of my tree from project on PowerPoint)
Sources (formal citations to come):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNZulupvzfU
http://eatingdisorder.org/love-your-tree/
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/CollegiateSurveyProject
loveyourtree (Microsoft Word version of outline)