Hello everyone,
I created a video about body positivity and asked myself if it is actually really that positive.
Hope you enjoy!
Sources:
“Body Positive,” Urban Dictionary, Accessed 20 December, 2021, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Body%20Positive&=true.
Charlotte Markey, “Body Positivity on Social Media Is a Work in Progress,” Psychology Today, accessed 8 December, 2021, https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/smart-people-don-t-diet/202008/body-positivity-social-media-is-work-in-progress.
Instagram: #bodypositivity
Great video Ruth! I agree that body positivity on social media had strayed from its original goal. I also agree that it should become an inside => outside process as people learn to accept themselves and differences with other and start to show that on the outside. A lot of body positivity is described as loving or liking your body but I think body neutrality is a more realistic outlook. This means that you take a neutral perspective towards your body. You do not have to feel like you have to love or like your body everyday. Or that you have to change something about your body that you do not like (given that it is something you can change by for example working out). That it is okay to not like the way you look and be okay with that and just appreciate the things your body can do.
I simultaneously agree and disagree. I agree that body neutrality is more realistic. At the same time, I think a movement should be more radical, that’s why I really enjoy the #bodypositivity one. More so, I think the body neutrality mindset might be a positive outcome of the movement. Also, body positivity might drive you to change or accept/love things you didn’t like before. Not all heroes wear capes and inspiration might be drawn from the smallest thing, like a random post of a body-positive person.
Interesting perspective Ruth!! I have also tackle body positivity in my blog post “the dark side of Instagram filters”. I think many people on instagram are trying to counter the ‘mainstream’ conception of beauty that sees “perfect” slim body, “perfect” skin and a canonical facial features. Some ways to contest this unreality is showing skin marks and ‘normal’ body. On this topic I particularly like the way that these two profiles – @sundaymorningview and @georgie.clarke) deal with body positivity. The first one shows all shapes and skin tones and normalises what we would commonly call ‘defects’ but not only, it it also make us appreciate our bodies for all they do.
Great video! Sadly, I think that the algorithm on TikTok or on Instagram, even under the hashtag of body positivity, is still promoting the bodies that get the most likes, the bodies that we find most beautiful. Even larger-sized people under the hashtag of body positivity are at least considered ‘curvy’, this means that bodies that do not fit this norm of western beauty, of although being larger-sized having exactly the right curves and still having a thin waist, are still being excluded within the body positivity movement, especially since it is mostly active online. Although the internet has provided a platform for people to move towards body positivity, or at least body neutrality, I believe that there is still much work to do and social media platforms as well as their users should be critical about the movement and the ways in which social media platforms and their inner workings are influencing them.
I think you are very right. The idea of body positivity comes from a very well meant initiative, but, just as many things that experience an increase in populairty, it is not always adopted in the way it was meant. I think what you put forward at the end of your video should indeed be what we collectively should be wanting to strive towards, however I do think it is very hard to realise, as people will always be influenced by pictures of other people. I think it is also in human nature to compare oneself with others, and also to want things that do not have are are not, even though this has negative effects on ourselves.