Gold Award Highlight:
Kyla Colcombe
Focusing on the positive!
Thanks to the efforts of Girl Scout Kyla Colcombe,
fewer girls feel like they have to measure up to the
unrealistic images they see on television and in
magazines.
This pressure girls feel to focus on their looks is a
common experience in today’s society. A Girl Scout
Research Institute study found that 60% of girls
compare themselves to fashion models, and 31%
admit to starving themselves or refusing to eat as a
strategy to lose weight. Kyla addressed these issues
as she worked to earn her Gold Award.
Kyla was a 2013 graduate of Upper St. Clair High
School. As her Gold Award project, Kyla developed
a program for girls ages 9-14 to show them that
aspiring to be like the women they see in media is
both unrealistic and unhealthy.
Her four-day program – called “Girl Camp” – took
place at the Upper St. Clair Community Center
in August 2012. Kyla felt that the images of
women in magazines and other media sent the
wrong message to young women – that physical
perfection is the norm. She created this program
so that girls would recognize their own positive
traits, learn to identify negative and positive
media images, and focus on their aspirations and
accomplishments.
Several topics were covered by the program,
including eating healthy, being themselves,
identifying positive versus negative influences,
handling peer pressure, and understanding how
media photos are manipulated to remove physical
flaws. The sessions were designed to be fun and
interactive to engage and entertain the girls.
The program was so successful and well-received,
Kyla was a ͭ