About us
The Embrace Collective is a DGR1 registered health promotion charity dedicated to building better body image to help people achieve optimal physical and mental health.
Led by 2023 Australian of the Year, Taryn Brumfitt, and international body image expert, Dr Zali Yager, The Embrace Collective brings together the best of science and creativity for impact. Our global network of researchers, experts, advocates, and lived experience advisors inform our programs, advocacy and campaigns that change the way the world thinks and feels about bodies, weight, and health.
Through our suite of age-appropriate programs and resources, we get in early to teach the message of body appreciation to young people and support the adults around them to create a culture of kindness and body inclusion in all the places where young people live, learn and play to build better body image, now and for generations to come.
Our vision: A world where people are empowered to thrive, free from feelings of pressure, judgement and shame about their appearance.
Our mission: To build better body image from the beginning, so all people can be happy, healthy and thrive.
Through our suite of age-appropriate programs and resources, we get in early to teach the message of body appreciation to young people and support the adults around them to create a culture of kindness and body inclusion in all the places where young people live, learn and play to build better body image, now and for generations to come.
Our vision: A world where people are empowered to thrive, free from feelings of pressure, judgement and shame about their appearance.
Our mission: To build better body image from the beginning, so all people can be happy, healthy and thrive.
Our approach
Evidence-based programs
Supporting young people — in all of the places where they live, learn and play — to build better body image from the beginning. We blend the latest science with creative approaches to produce programs and resources that are safe, effective and have epic impact.
Informed by lived experience
Our team, advisory networks, and clinical advisors inform our approach by bringing the voices and stories of people who have experienced body dissatisfaction, eating disorders (clinical and subclinical), depression and mental health concerns, as well as those living in larger bodies and those who identify as culturally diverse, neurodiverse, gender diverse, and disabled.
Changing professional practice
We educate the adults around the young people — in home and family, education, and sport and movement settings — to create cultures of kindness without the criticism, comparisons and comments that fuel body shame.
Advocating for change
Our collaborative advocacy efforts have driven change in school curriculum and health policy, to ensure a focus on health, not weight.
Meet our founders
Taryn Brumfitt
Taryn Brumfitt is an award-winning filmmaker, bestselling author and internationally sought-after keynote speaker. Awarded 2023 Australian of the Year, she is a fiercely passionate advocate for social change and her message has reached more than 200 million people around the world.
Taryn is the founder of the Body Image Movement, director of the inspiring documentaries EMBRACE and EMBRACE KIDS, and author of four books. Her global crusade to help people embrace their bodies has seen her recognised by UN Women, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls and the Geena Davis Institute. Taryn has delivered more than 100 keynote addresses, and her talk at Google HQ in Silicon Valley was live-streamed to every Google office in the world.
In 2018, she was recognised in the Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence awards and received the SA Award for Excellence in Women’s Leadership from Women and Leadership Australia. She was also crowned EY Entrepreneur of the Year, South Australia, and has been named among GE’s highest-rated speakers.
With a powerful, universal message and unwavering commitment to her cause, Taryn Brumfitt is a true force to be reckoned with.
Dr Zali Yager
Dr Zali Yager is an internationally-recognised expert in the body image space, known for figuring out ‘what works’ to help people feel better about their bodies.
Zali is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University, with a background in health and physical education.
In 2021, Zali was awarded one of 10 Westpac Social Change Fellowships. She received a Creswick Fellowship to spend time at Harvard and Northeastern University in 2018, and a Leverhulme Fellowship in 2011 to complete her postdoctoral work at the Centre for Appearance Research in the UK.
Zali co-authored the Embrace Kids book with Taryn Brumfitt from the Body Image Movement, and was the body image expert advisor on the EMBRACE KIDS film. She is ridiculously passionate and driven by the desire to create a safer body image environment for the next generation.
Zali is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University, with a background in health and physical education.
In 2021, Zali was awarded one of 10 Westpac Social Change Fellowships. She received a Creswick Fellowship to spend time at Harvard and Northeastern University in 2018, and a Leverhulme Fellowship in 2011 to complete her postdoctoral work at the Centre for Appearance Research in the UK.
Zali co-authored the Embrace Kids book with Taryn Brumfitt from the Body Image Movement, and was the body image expert advisor on the EMBRACE KIDS film. She is ridiculously passionate and driven by the desire to create a safer body image environment for the next generation.