In this era, new generations pride themselves on being more aware and active in mental health initiatives. One major aspect of mental health is body image, which is often associated with the body positivity movement. Many people tend to dislike their bodies, whether it’s due to bullying or unrealistic expectations set for themselves, from dolls to mainstream and social media. This damages their mental health and physical health, especially with the onset of eating disorders. The body positivity movement was meant to combat this by encouraging people to embrace their bodies. However, despite the rather noble goals of this movement, it has done more harm than good to humanity.
A primary argument for body positivity is that genetics play a determining role in whether one’s weight will be above or below average. Therefore, being heavy doesn't mean being unhealthy and vice versa. The issue is that people use that argument to explain why they’re severely overweight despite the fact that a healthy diet and active lifestyle can reverse weight gain for the majority. This has become an excuse for complacency and laziness with the disguise of inclusivity and kindness.
The body positivity movement is intended towards everyone, with emphasis on women, the primary audience involved. This is completely understandable as women’s beauty and worth have been heavily related to weight. The feminist movement supports the body positivity movement as they both share the notion to fight beauty standards and show that women’s worth is not based solely on what is physically attractive.
Supporting the feminist movement or not is utterly irrelevant to the fact that the body positivity movement is counterproductive to the feminist cause. Instead of simply trying to show that women’s worth is not dependent on their physical appearance, they instead change the beauty standard, making it so that everyone is beautiful. Not only does it still correlate beauty with self-worth, but the idea is also a blatant lie. While beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, not everyone is physically beautiful. There are sciences behind what we consider beautiful, and so the body positivity movement is essentially giving a sense of self-worth on lies.
Finally, the most detrimental issue with the body positivity movement is that it has mostly turned into a fat acceptance movement. Hand in hand with modern society’s importance on the idea that people should not change to fit society’s standards, people who push for the concept of fat acceptance do not feel the need to conform to what is considered healthy. Although not conforming to society may be right, refusing to attempt to achieve a healthy weight and lifestyle is not something one should want to do. Aside from the fact that fat acceptance stems from trying to normalize self-indulgences into desires without self-control, it kills people. Protecting self-esteem and feelings will not prevent the consequences of being overweight and obese as heart disease does not care about your self-esteem.
Differentiating between accepting complacency and loving oneself despite flaws is a difficult feat to do; however, it is a necessary one as failing to do so will lead to a self-destructive path paved with ego and falsehoods.
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