| |
Swimmers change alone after school’s complaints
Sports centre introduces screens to protect girls’ modesty
DIVIDING screens set up in the showers of a sports centre in Queen’s Park have reignited the “size zero” debate.
Jubilee Sports Centre changing rooms have been equipped with plastic screens to protect swimmers’ “modesty”.
The headteacher of Wilberforce Primary School in Beethoven Street, Queen’s Park, had complained that her children needed to be shielded from other adults in the changing rooms.
And teenage girls welcomed the changes. They complained pressure to live up to stick-thin role models from the catwalk meant they wanted to change alone.
One teenager, who did not want to be named, said the sight of comparatively skinny girls talking about their “fat thighs”, could force others into damaging crash diets.
She said: “Girls and young women are more self-conscious about their figures than ever. If a girl moans in the shower about the size of her thighs, and her thighs aren’t even as big as mine, how does that make me feel?”
The council ordered the screens after the complaints.
But long-time users of the pool have blasted the decision as “prurient nonsense”.
Swimmer Julius Hogben, who has used the pool for more than 30 years, asked: “Why should they impose their insecurities on others?”
He claimed the measures made the changing rooms an easy target for thieves, adding: “People are naked in changing rooms. There’s nothing shocking or perverse about that.
“I have never been aware of a single person gazing at the naked bodies of males in the shower. In any case they’re still naked when they file out uncomfortably from each far end of this ridiculous screen.”
Councillor Daniel Astaire, Cabinet Member for Customer and Community Services, said: “This issue arose when we received complaints from users, and also the headteacher from Wilberforce school, concerning the shared changing arrangements for school children at the Jubilee Sports Centre.
“As a short-term solution, we therefore agreed to install modesty screens.
“We believe that this has met the concerns and does not have any impact on general users of the facilities.
“In fact, we had already identified the need to create a separate school changing area at the site as part of this year’s capital improvement programme.
“The improvements therefore are simply part of our ongoing strategy to make the facilities as appropriate, attractive and accessible as they can be so the whole community are able to use them.”
|
 |
|
| |
| |
