Oct 27, 2015

I used to be fat. Not like obese, but pretty fat. I’ve lost thirty pounds since the dark days, with workouts and diet changes and whatever else. But still, that fat girl hides inside me. And what she knows is that body positivity, in today’s context, is a tough sell. People endorse this modern movement called fat-acceptance, which, according to Al-Jazeera, lives by these words: Stop shaming me because I’m fat. Stop making assumptions about my health, my lifestyle, my diet, my romantic life, my career — simply because I’m fat. Stop using the word “fat” in a derogatory way. (http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/6/lindy-wests-pro-fat-feminism-is-identity-politics-gone-wrong.html).

Women should love their bodies. And it’s great that the body-positivity movement is taking us away from the skinny, white, blue-eyed, blond-haired female with big boobs archetype. But there’s a limit to this. We should love the way we look, but we shouldn’t be unhealthy. Sure, there are plenty of women who are overweight and in “good health,” but trust me, hon. Those donuts will catch up with you in the form of joint pain and diabetes someday.

Of course, you can look beautiful even if you’re three hundred pounds. Beauty comes from the words you speak and the way you you carry yourself; but beauty shouldn’t be the priority against health. Women, we should accept ourselves the way we are, but we should also ensure that we’re taking care of our bodies.

Naomi Teeter of The Huffington Post used to be 300 pounds before she lost almost 150 pounds. Regarding weight loss, she writes that the body-positive movement shouldn’t encourage women to be too skinny, nor should it push women to accept being overweight. Rather, it should push us to achieve whatever standards we’ve set for ourselves and for our own personal health; not the ones society has set for us. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-teeter/why-i-cant-accept-the-300_b_8217548.html)

What Teeter understands it that there is a need for balance. The body image message is skewed; where we are leading women in one direction or another to look a certain way for aesthetics, we should be directing each other to feel a certain way for our health.

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The reality is that, despite the idea that it would be nice to have a world free of judgment and opinions entirely predicated upon achievements, not on appearance, that’s not how it works. Nor will it ever be. If we’re being completely honest with ourselves, we’ll notice that we tend to be partial towards people who look more attractive and feel more confident, and these tend to go hand-in-hand with good health. Like Livestrong suggests, being healthier in turn also perceives your own perceived self-worth (http://www.livestrong.com/article/438937-how-does-exercise-affect-your-self-esteem/). I can definitely attest to this – the more I worked to refine my bodies and eat healthier, the better I felt about myself. I’m not saying we should all go out and commit to CrossFit X and Jillian Michaels’s workouts, but it doesn’t hurt to strive for a more athletic lifestyle.

Of course, it’s good for people to accept body fat as a reality. But we shouldn’t encourage an outlook of loving our bodies when they’re three hundred pounds heavy and overweight. Body-positive messages are good insofar as there’s a cutoff. Too many women and men excuse poor lifestyle choices as being “self-accepting” when in reality, they’re looking for ways to justify sitting around, not exercising, and eating junk food.

Confidence comes internally. It’s not supposed to be predicated upon how many guys holler at your booty or how closely you conform to the public image of beauty these days; it’ll come from your own perceived self-worth. It’ll come from putting work into putting yourself together, running laps in the gym, dressing well, whatever else. If you put effort into how you look, you’ll start loving yourself.

Now, all this being said, the body-positivity movement is taking us in the right direction. Before body-positivity, a woman was supposed to be ninety pounds and delicate, which isn’t right. After body-positivity, women were being told that it’s okay to be 200 pounds overweight, which isn’t right either. The modern body-positive movement is somewhat of a happy compromise. Fat acceptance acknowledges the natural imperfections of a woman’s physique, and praises us for it rather than demean us. Nevertheless, I say we shouldn’t be all too concerned with whatever body movement our celebrities are promoting these days. Let’s all spend less time trying to live up to some image of perfection refined by outside media sources, and more time working on our own bodies, eating healthy, and being awesome.