Billie Jean King On Joining Dove’s Squad To Keep Girls In Sports
Billie Jean King On Joining Dove’s Squad To Keep Girls In Sports
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2nd July 1964: American tennis player Billie Jean Moffitt (later King) in action during a semi final in the women's singles championship at Wimbledon. (Photo by Dennis Oulds/Central Press/Getty Images)
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Billie Jean King is known as one of the greatest tennis players in history, with 39 Grand Slam titles under her belt. She’s equally renowned for her work off the court, as a recipient for a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her advocacy efforts for women in sports and LGBTQ rights, as well as founding the Women’s Sports Foundation, which advocates for female athletes.
But even when she was dominating the courts, King struggled with body confidence, like so many other female athletes. “I have an eating disorder,” she says. “I was about 11 [when it started], but one thing that tennis did for me is I kept my weight where it should be because I wanted these goals, and I knew that part of reaching my goals was to take care of my body. As a child in the 50s, you can imagine the messaging I was getting was shocking… My eating disorder was under control when I was an athlete. It was after I quit that it got out of control. I was able to rein it in, but I got a lot of help.”
Knowing the challenges that women face in sports, King was eager to join an inspiring lineup of influential female voices that have teamed up to support Dove’s commitment to keeping girls in sports through their Body Confident Sports program. “My whole life, I've been trying to get girls to believe in themselves and believe in their bodies,” King says. “When I read that 48% drop out because someone's told them they have the wrong body type, I'm like, boy, let's go.”
To shine a spotlight on body confidence and raise awareness of the impact negative body talk can have on girls in sports, Dove is returning to one of the biggest nights in sports with a 30-second spot that will air during the Super Bowl. The powerful commercial will run during the fourth quarter of the game and features a re-recording of Bruce Springsteen's iconic song "Born to Run," 50 years after its original release. The ad was created in partnership with Ogilvy UK and was inspired by research that found that almost half of girls who drop out of sports are criticized for their body type, and less than half of girls saying they feel confident about how their body looks when playing sports.
“It's always about our looks and our bodies are never good enough,” King says. “We're never good enough because we're taught to be perfect, and that is ridiculous. I started the Women's Sports Foundation over 50 years ago and this is right up our alley. We want girls to believe in themselves to have the best life possible.”
The ad celebrates Dove’s mission to make sports a place where all girls can thrive and feel like they belong. That’s why Dove launched the first-of-its-kind Body Confident Sport program in 2023. Tapping a scientifically-proven set of coaching tools designed to build body confidence in 11- to 17-year-old girls and encourage them to stay in sports, the program is part of the Dove Self-Esteem Project and offers free, evidence-based resources for parents, teachers, mentors and kids through a network of organizations in schools and sports clubs around the world. The Dove Self-Esteem Project is the largest provider of body confidence and self-esteem education globally. Report this page