By Athena Bellas

On September 29th, our fabulous OWP facilitator Christy ran a seminar called Body Positivity: Undoing Social Media Shame. Christy led a lively discussion about body positivity and body neutrality, along with guest panellist Lacey-Jade Christie, who offered incredible insight into the topic as well as practical advice for living a body positive life.

About our guest panellist: Lacey-Jade Christie is a fiery Melbourne-based plus-size influencer and freelance writer. She combines her life as a nurse with her own experience of mental illness and is a strong advocate for safe spaces for the body positive (BoPo) and Queer community to come together through both the podcast, and at various events she hosts throughout the year. Not one to shy away from the controversial, she is an LGBTIQA+ activist, feminist and published writer, having featured in publications such as The Guardian, The Age, Archer Magazine and many more. Lacey’s passion for inclusivity and celebrating diversity shine through her, much like the glitter she is constantly covered in. 

CW: eating disorders, diet culture, weight loss and fatphobia.

What is body positivity and how is it different to body neutrality?

To help us get a sense of what body positivity is, Christy shared a quote from Kendra Cherry: ‘Body positivity refers to the assertion that all people deserve to have a positive body image, regardless of how society and popular culture view ideal shape, size and appearance’ (2020, para 1). In other words, body positivity is a movement that rejects the cultural valorisation of thin, white and able-bodied individuals, and instead asserts that all bodies are worthy, good, beautiful and deserving of celebration. On the other hand, according to psychotherapist Alison Stone, body neutrality ‘is simply about being. It is about being without passing judgement or harboring strong emotions about how we look’ (2018, para 13). Stone elaborates: ‘too often, we fall into the black-or-white trap of either loving or hating our bodies, and I think this movement provides an opportunity for a middle ground. It provides an opportunity for acceptance’ (para 11). So, while body positivity focuses its attention on fostering a positive image of oneself and other diverse bodies, body neutrality aims to reduce the focus on the body as something to either love or hate. As Cohen et al. write in their study on the topic, body positive images might perpetuate the social focus on and importance of appearance above other attributes ‘and thus may merely perpetuate the underlying issue in the first place, by keeping the focus on the body’ (2020, 3). As Lacey pointed out during the seminar, ‘there are so many more interesting things about you than the size of your body.’ Lacey believes that ‘the goal is body neutrality; to not think about your body in a negative or bad way, but to just accept that it exists and to move on with your day.’

Intersectionality and the body positive movement

While there is a lot to celebrate about the body positive movement, our seminar also confronted some of its current limitations. This gave us an opportunity to reflect on ways to engage with the movement better, and to create change within ourselves and the world at large. A number of studies and articles have pointed out that the mainstream body positive movement (especially as it manifests on social media) does not adequately include bodies that are most marginalised within society, such as those of queer people, gender non-conforming people, trans people, people with disabilities, and people from marginalised ethnic or racial groups (see for example Cohen-Rottenberg 2017, Faye 2019, Sastre 2014 and Cwynar-Horta 2016). This section of the seminar especially focused on the whitewashing of the movement, through watching and reflecting on a video about race and body positivity. Sherronda Brown writes that ‘Black women especially had long been talking and writing about how their Blackness informed how they experienced fat antagonism. What most people don’t understand about body positivity [is that it started in response to] white society’s fear of the racial Other’ (quoted by Johnson 2019, para 26). This interlinking of racism and fatphobia is made clear by Hunter Shackleford, who writes that ‘fat women [sic] and femmes of colour are ignored, while those who are lighter-skinned are hyper-humanised. This works in conjunction with fatphobia. Darker-skinned fat Black women [sic] and femmes are demonised and juxtaposed as the direct opposite of the beauty standards that promote white, thin, femme bodies as a universal goal’ (2016, para 11). We discussed a range of ways to oppose the whitewashing that Brown and Shakleford describe, including committing to elevating marginalised voices and diversifying what we see and read (including on social media). This was so great, because it gave us some concrete steps we could take after the seminar in the body positivity space. As Stephanie Yeboah recently wrote, ‘one great thing that can help the movement along is allyship. People who live in privileged and smaller bodies can be a part of the body positivity movement by using their platforms and voices to uplift, retweet and reblog the thoughts, opinions and perspectives of voices who would otherwise not be heard, due to how they look. With their help, we can deconstruct the dangerous and harmful narratives about weight created by the media and diet industry’ (2020, para 15).

Diet culture and the bullshit of BMI

Lacey spoke really powerfully about the harms of the billion-dollar diet culture and the way thinness is worshipped. In diet culture, thinness is falsely equated with healthiness and worthiness. As a result of this false equation, a social hierarchy emerges, in which thin people are rewarded, while those who diverge from the thin ideal are oppressed in various ways, including at work and when seeking medical treatment. Lacey pointed out that this oppression disproportionately harms women, femmes, trans folks, people in larger bodies, people of colour and people with disabilities, and that this oppression is damaging to both their mental and physical health. Interlinked with this, Lacey broke down the bullshit of BMI, which she pointed out is both sexist and racist. She explored its introduction in the nineteenth century as a statistical tool for measuring population weight averages, based on studies made up of only cis, white, male bodies. The BMI takedown continued as Lacey explained its (mis)use and manipulation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by insurance companies to determine rates for individual people’s access to healthcare. The BMI is sometimes referred to as an ‘imperfect tool’ by doctors and other medical practitioners who still routinely use it. However, Lacey energised us to take our newfound knowledge about its history and misuse with us, to empower ourselves in future conversations in the doctor’s office and beyond.

How to feel good about yourself: Lacey’s top 3 tips

Lacey offered three amazing top tips for feeling good about yourself. They were:

1. Diversify and purposefully curate your social media feed: follow people who look like you, in order to normalise your own body. Then, follow people who don’t have a body like yours, but have diverse or marginalised bodies. Numerous research projects have shown that exposure to images of diverse bodies can lead to increased self-acceptance, healthy behaviours (e.g., intuitive eating and physical activity) and emotional wellbeing (Williamson and Karazsia 2018, Swami et al. 2018, Andrew et al. 2016, and Halliwell 2013).

2. Ban diet talk: Lacey shared that due to her history with an eating disorder, she has banned diet talk with her family and friends. Establishing healthy boundaries for the sake of your mental and physical health is legitimate and good!

3. Speak kindly to yourself: especially on days when you don’t feel like you love your body. On days where positivity or neutrality just isn’t possible for whatever reason, Lacey advises to speak kindly to yourself – like you would if you were talking to your best friend who is having a bad day. Towards the end of the seminar, Lacey quipped: ‘there’s no way you would stare at your best friend and say, “you know what? You’re a fat, ugly bitch and no one’s gonna love you.” Absolutely not. You’d say “bitch, you’re amazing, I love you and you’re so hot!” I’m a great hype girl. And you’ve gotta do that with yourself.’

Bibliography

Andrew R, Tiggemann M and Clark L. 2016. ‘Predictors and Health-Related Outcomes of Positive Body Image in Adolescent Girls: A Prospective Study.’ Developmental Psychology 52: pp.463-474

BBC News. 2020. ‘Body Positive Movement: Why is My Body Not Important?’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JaFNYGwKbE&t=212s

Cohen R, Newton-John T, Slater A. 2020. ‘The Case for Body Positivity on Social Media: Perspectives on Current Advances and Future Directions.’ Journal of Health Psychology 0: pp.1-9

Cohen-Rottenberg, R. 2017. ‘Where Are All the Disabled People in the Body Positivity Campaigns?’ The Body is Not an Apology https://thebodyisnotanapology.com/magazine/where-are-all-the-disabled-people-in-the-body-positivity-campaigns/

Cwynar-Horta, J. 2016. ‘Documenting Femininity: Body Positivity and Female Empowerment on Instagram’ (Masters Thesis)