BODY POSITIVITY

Fat, hair, bones, spots, vitiligo, moles, blood: never before has the body-positive captured the media attention as today. Body Positivity was born as a political and social movement aimed at challenging the canons and prejudices of society on bodies. Its origins are intertwined with the history of the 1960s claims on fat-acceptance, to combat discrimination against fat people and celebrate plus-size bodies; they burned photos of models like Twiggy and even books on diets, organized lectures and seminars in schools. From concrete activism then a part of Body Positivity has turned into a real economy in its own right, coming to coincide with the photos on Instagram made of glittery stretch marks.

The online version that we could define as “a little fake”, was created by liberal feminism under the influence of pinkwashing, that is all those marketing activities that use themes related to women (feminism, sex / body-positive etc.) to gain market advantage. The message, however, is obviously deviating until it reaches the paradoxical situation whereby the Body Positive movement itself is marginalizing the bodies that were previously at the center. This is because brands show new standards in advertisements, this time a little curvy, but always new standards. This also happens in the fashion shows, where luxury brands give more and more space to models with different bodies. Yet, as Antonio Mancinelli noted: “when people go to the boutiques of the same brands to buy a suit, they often find only very small sizes”.

For each cover that praises Body Positivity and self-acceptance, “without judgments”, in the magazine on duty there are dozens of advertisements and articles on fitness that talk about how to lose weight in a few weeks, and that promote the diet cultures.

Lizzo talked about how the body positivity movement is marketed and most of the time when you see that hashtag it’s smaller, curvy, white girls, and that’s not inclusive

It cannot be denied that an openness from the media towards these issues is positive news, especially if one thinks of all the problems of self-acceptance that adolescents experience, but there is almost never a concrete translation of the great declarations and reflections that are made. In this way, this Instagram caption-sweetened narrative risks remaining an end in itself.

Suffering from your appearance is wrong, you are okay as you are ”. It doesn’t matter if you are thin, fat, wide or narrow hips, stretch marks or small breasts, belly or frizzy hair, big nose or thin lips, teeth or crooked legs – you are fine exactly the way you are. .

Andrea Watcher, a psychotherapist and author says – I have learned that changing my body will not make me feel loved, loving myself will. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance  and all women and men have the right to accept their body. The shame is on the ones who use that to attack their self esteem.