What is Bodypositive?
In the last decade, on social media, a new movement has emerged in response to the constant pressures of media images that promote unrealistic and often unattainable ideals of thinness.
With over 18 million posts tagged with #bodypositive (Instagram, April 2022), the movement challenges the ideals of dominant beauty in order to:
- Encourage acceptance and respect for all bodies regardless of their shape, size and characteristics
- Focus on appreciating the functionality of the body
- Focus on health rather than aspect
Body-positive supporters believe that all bodies deserve respect and that by promoting certain images, a more positive relationship can be obtained.
What do research say?
Existing literature shows, evidently, that being exposed to beauty models based on the ideal of thinness produces a sense of body dissatisfaction in young women.
This sense of dissatisfaction is an important risk factor for the development of eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa.
THE’positive body image It has been conceptualized as a loving and respectful attitude towards our entire body (Tylka and Wook-Bracalow, 2015).
It seems that the positive body image is associated with:
- Greater psychological, social and emotional well -being (Swami et al., 2018);
- Behaviors that promote health, as intuitive nutrition (intuitive eating) and physical activity (Andrew et al., 2016a, 2016b);
- Greater protection for exposure to models that promote the ideal of thinness (Andrew et al., 2015).
When we have anpositive body image We are able to:
- Appreciate the unique characteristics of our body even if these do not correspond to the ideals of beauty proposed by social networks or society in general;
- Give a wider definition of beauty;
- Listen and take care of the needs of one’s body;
- Criticize certain models proposed in favor of a protective attitude of one’s body.
A recent research (Cohen et al., 2019) highlights how, the main instagram accounts of body-positive reflect the theoretical principles of the positive body image: acceptance, care and respect towards all types and characteristic of one’s body.
Therefore, many authors have concluded that the insertion of body-positive content on Instagram can produce beneficial psychological effects in women.
What are the main criticisms of this movement?
“The body-positive movement encourages obesity and unhealthy lifestyles”
These statements remain unfounded and probably reflect a intrinsic prejudice of weight. To date, there is no empirical tests in support of the hypothesis that seeing images of body-positive leads to unhealthy behaviors and obesity.
“The body-positive movement is admirable, but does not free women” (The Sydney Morning Herald; Reilly, 2017)
Some newspapers and blogs criticize this movement as despite being positive messages, the contents always focus on physical aspect, maintaining excessive focus on the body.
Keeping the focus on the body, can encourage girls and women to objectify their body: to see themselves as an object that must be evaluated by others.
The objectification of the body has a series of negative psychological consequences as:
- shame of one’s body;
- anxiety relating to external aspect;
- Food disorders;
- sexual dysfunctions.
A preliminary study reveals that the exposure to Body-positive post on Instagram is associated with both a greater appreciation of one’s body and a greater tendency to self-objectiveness.
Further studies are needed to clarify how these apparently opposite constructs can coexist.
What if we talked about #Body-Neutrality?
“You are more than a body”
“Your body does not exist to be pleasant in the eyes of others”
While the body-positive aims to change the definition of beauty in society, promoting the acceptance and appreciation of all the forms and dimensions of the body, the body-neutrality aims to change the value that society attributes to beauty, encouraging people to put less emphasis on their physical appearance.
Although body-neutrality can be a very useful perspective to be adopted, it is a very complex challenge in a society in which, especially the body of women, it is constantly bombed by messages to “examine” the defects and fix them by eliminating them.
