Body positivity vs. Body neutrality
- Kamila Niemotko
- Jun 2, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 1, 2023
BODY POSITIVITY
As previously mentioned, this movement begun in the 60s, with the idea to end fat-shaming. Lew Louderback wrote an essay called "More People Should be Fat!" when he saw the discrimination his wife experienced for her size. The essay shed light on the discrimination fat people experience in America and the culture surrounding fat-shaming. His work inspired the creation of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) in 1969 by Bill Fabrey. Another wave came in 2012, with the rise of Instagram which inspired people to discuss and fight the cultural beauty standards. It aims to promote acceptance and appreciation of a diversity of body types and and sizes. While this is an amazing idea, like everything that goes into the internet, at some point it had to go too far, and started to become toxic. Some people are worried the movement is becoming to exclusionary, since, like the artist Lizzo said, the movement has been “co-opted by all bodies” and has become about celebrating “medium and small girls and people who occasionally get rolls”. The movement may also continue to exclude the marginalised bodies, seeing that the most influential posts are usually from white, conventionally beautiful women’s accounts. There are concerns that the current movement pushes a form of “toxic positivity”, that we should always be positive no matter what, and that we should silence negative emotions in ourselves and others.
BODY NEUTRALITY
It became popular because as much as we want it to be, loving yourself at all times is impossible. Some people began to reject this movement, and chose a different mode of thinking, called body neutrality. Body neutrality is sometimes pitched as a “middle ground” between the messages of loving or hating your body. The aim of body neutrality is to change the way they think about their body or even to just spend less time thinking about it. Body neutrality is just pure acceptance. Other people’s idea of staying neutral is to think of one’s body as a tool, thinking of one’s legs only as a way to walk etc. But some researchers are concerned that, in practice, body neutrality may even result in more negative body image – especially if people end up merely “tolerating” their bodies.
To sum it all up, body positivity focuses on loving your body the way it looks, while body neutrality is all about focusing on one’s feelings instead of looks. What we all have to remember is that everyone is different and we should never judge people based on what they look like.
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