Part of choosing to respect yourself is taking pride in your body which means knowing how your body works and taking care of your body so that you can live an active healthy life.  This includes making informed decisions about sex, but also making good physical, mental, emotional and spiritual choices.

During puberty, the time when your body is changing from a child’s to a young adult’s, it may be hard to feel good about your body all the time.  Learning about what is happening to your body – and knowing that everyone’s body is different – can help.  Since puberty is a time of emotional as well as physical change, you may feel great, confused, worried, and excited all at the same time and happy at one moment and sad or angry the next.

Even though sometimes we look at other people’s bodies to compare them to our own, we should not be pressured to believe there is only one good way to look.  Even though many people on TV and in the movies have ‘perfect’ hair, ‘perfect’ skin and ‘perfectly’ shaped bodies. In the real world, real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages.

This site only has information on the sexual parts of our bodies, but there is lots of additional information on the Internet about how bodies work, how to take care of our bodies and how to be happy with the way we look.  Here are a few links to get you started:

How the Body Works
About Kids Bodies
Your Body Image
Teen Body and Mind