Body Positivity doesn’t mean you’ve got to remain complacent with yourself. It doesn’t mean never wanting to improve in some aspect of your lifestyle. It doesn’t mean being narcissistic, or prideful. It means that you love and appreciate yourself in spite of flaws.
Our society and centuries of pop culture have taught us to perceive some body types as ideal and some others as undesirable. But each one of us is too awesome to just fit into a stereotype.
Rise of social media has made terms like fat shaming and body shaming the new buzzwords, encouraging us to call out people who try to project our imperfections as inferiorities.
However, body positivity is not just about challenging how society views people based upon their physical size and shape. It also addresses unfair judgments that are made based on race, gender, sexuality, and disability.
History of Body Positivity
Fatphobia was a concept devised by colonists who created the idea that Africans (African women, specifically) were gluttonous, lazy, ignorant, and unable to control their “animal appetites.”
Fat activism began in 1960s along with women’s liberation and Black Civil Rights movements. In 1967, five hundred people conducted a sit-in protest in New York’s Central Park. They ate, carried signs, and burnt diet books to show their anger against fat-based bias.
The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, the first organization in the US, to support this movement was established in 1969. It continues to work to change how people perceive weight.
The body positivity movement in its current form began to emerge around 2012, targeting unrealistic feminine beauty standards with a message that ”all bodies are beautiful”. Instagram played a vital role in the rise of this movement.
In recent years, various magazines and organizations have incorporated efforts to be more body positive. Some magazines have stopped airbrushing models, while companies including Dove and Aerie have developed marketing campaigns with body positivity as the central theme.
Why Is Body Positivity Important?
One of the main goals of body positivity is to address the ways in which body image influences mental health and well-being. Research suggests that having a negative body image is associated with risk of mental conditions like:
1. Depression:
Women experience depression at much higher rates than men do, and some researchers believe that body dissatisfaction may play an important role in explaining this gender difference in depression rates.
2. Low Self-Esteem:
Research has found that body dissatisfaction is linked with poor self-esteem in adolescents irrespective of their gender, age, weight, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.
3. Eating Disorders:
Research also indicates that body dissatisfaction is linked to disordered eating, particularly among adolescent girls.
Unfortunately, the formation of body image starts early in life.
A recent study on school children reported that over 50% of girls and nearly 33% of boys between the ages of six and eight felt that their ideal body weight was less than their current weight. Results also revealed that 25% of kids had tried some type of dieting practice by the age of seven.
What Can You Do?
Body positivity is intended to foster acceptance and love of your body but increased pressure to feel positive about your body can cause guilt. Here’s what you can do to keep up a healthy body image:
1. Adopt Body Neutrality
It’s fine to admit that you don’t necessarily love everything about your body. It’s alright to feel neutral or even indifferent about your body.
Try taking off the spotlight of your self-perceptions from your physical appearance and focusing on other aspects of your personality instead. The key is to avoid the negative thought patterns that contribute to poor body image.
2. Make Your Health the Focal Point
Show respect for your body. Eat healthy meals because it charges your mind and body. Exercise because it boosts your metabolism and makes you feel stronger, not because you're trying to change your body or squeeze into a dress.
Wear and buy clothes for the body you have now- not for some planned future version. You might be holding on to your “thin clothes” because you plan to eventually lose weight, but such habits can make it hard to feel good about your today’s self.
Don’t value your body over your being.
Written by - Saija Bhumireddy
Edited by - Sandhya R
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