2020 was the year of Body Positivity. With Lizzo’s Juice blaring through the airwaves and plus-sized models strutting on the runway, it seemed we have finally gotten to a place in society where “fat” was no longer redeemed as a negative descriptor. To put it simply, body positivity is the movement that encourages people to love what they look like, no matter what. While it is traditionally for people of a larger size, it has become a movement to love your body no matter what it looks like. How could anyone disagree with that?
However, too many people, “Love your body” goes into the same category as “floss twice every day” and “always take your makeup off before you go to bed”. You know that you have to do it, but it’s easier said than done. There will always be moments where you wish that there was something different with your body and it is due to the society that we have grown up in.
Our generation grew up with magazines placed at our eye level at supermarkets comparing the bodies of celebrities as though they were up for public discussion. Pregnant Jessica Simpson was forced to make a statement about her weight gain as though she had done something wrong. There was body-shaming on the other side too, with pictures of the skinny Angelina Jolie under words such as “Drug Addict” and “Skeleton”. It seemed no matter if a woman was underweight or if she was overweight, there would always be something wrong with her body.
This level of thinking that has been engraved into our brains from the time that we were born can not magically go away overnight. It takes time and patience and not to mention, lots of recoveries. It’s not like I have an issue with body positivity – I think it is a long-overdue movement that we need to have conversations about. However, from my experience, it just doesn’t work.
What I found more helpful was something called “body neutrality”, where you simply do not focus on what your body looks like. It isn’t “I hate my legs”, but it also isn’t “I love them”. It’s the mindset of “These are my legs and I need them to walk”. The less attention I paid to my body, the more I found myself content with it – in a way that didn’t feel forced like with body positivity”.
Citing Actress and Activist Jameela Jamil as her inspiration, Taylor Swift states, “She talks about how we should just be not so much body-positive, but body-neutral,” says Swift. “We shouldn’t be thinking about them as much as we do, and I really like that. People like that who make solid points like that make me feel more chill about life.”
Whether with body positivity or body neutrality, we can all agree that our body isn’t going anywhere, and therefore, in whatever way works for us, we need to come to terms with it.