Eiden Raven - Body Positive Is Not a Trend: Love Your Body, Love Yourself & Take Back Your Powe

Body Positive Is Not a Trend

Love Your Body, Love Yourself and Take Back Your Power

Eiden Raven

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Introduction

W hen you first meet someone, you typically make some sort of judgment based on your initial impression of them in the first few seconds. Sure, your opinion can change as you get to know them, but as soon as you see them, youre scanning them head to toe. Youre taking in their hair color and style and judging them. Youre looking at their clothes and labeling them stylish or hopeless, wealthy or poor. Tattoos, piercings, glasses, and shoesall of it adds up quickly to give you a general idea of whom youre dealing with.

Youre usually wrong.

Well, maybe not wrong, exactly. But youre basing your impression of a stranger on looks alone, and youre comparing those looks to people youve encountered before, so youre arguably pulling from a limited pool of possibilities. However, we rarely stop to consider that this person might look a certain way because thats what makes them feel empowered or comfortable when they go out. They might act the complete opposite of how they look. Or their actions might be fake, a mask they wear so that they can register on your radar.

Keep in mind that people are doing this to you as you do to them. Usually, when you frame it that way, it seems more unfair.

Studies have been shown that participants judge someones character and personality based only on how their body looks (Emamzadeh, 2019). This is interesting because, though your body language can definitely express things about your personality, people typically look at facial expressions to really get a feel for someone theyve just met (Hu et al., 2018).

The thing is, these first impressions arent something you can completely change on your own. Sure, you can dress a certain way. You can dress punk to go out with your friends, then cover all of your tattoos with business casual clothes for a job interview, and people from the bar will get a different impression of you than the human resources manager... hopefully! But these superficial judgments go beyond the clothes youre wearing. People you meet will look at your body, and label you fat or thin, and then unhealthy or athletic almost immediately after.

In addition to noticing your body, people will also notice how you hold your body. If someone sees a fat girl shrinking into herself, they will know that she is ashamed, and they will change their impression accordingly. If that same person sees a fat girl walking proudly, they are less likely to notice the weight and instead notice the overall vibe shes giving off.

You can change how you dress and even what facial expressions you wear when you meet new people, but changing your body is something that takes a lot more workand its not necessary. Just because people look at larger bodies and think the person is lazy, then look at a slimmer body and think that person is disciplined doesnt mean youre responsible for that persons impression of you.

Body positivity means that you accept your body as it is now, without pushing yourself to lose weight in the future or gain muscle mass over the next few months. When you love the body you have now, youll find that you stand taller and arent afraid to look anyone in the eyes. A stranger might judge you as lazy if youre bigger, but you can shoot them an empowered look and move on; theyre not worth your time.

Not only do you accept your body for what it is, but you also accept other people as they are. This can be hard to do since we often judge people on appearance before we get to know them. After studying the body positive movement, youll learn how you can avoid making this judgment error.

Arguably, its harder for us to be kind to ourselves than others, so much of the body positive movement is focused on loving yourself. It can be hard to show yourself the same kindness you show your friends because you know you can push yourself to eat better and work out more. Pushing yourself is fine if youre coming from a genuine place of improvement, but so much of body image is based on shame.

People strive for unattainable images, and why? If society determines what beauty is, then why harm yourself to fit that mold when it will change over the upcoming months and years? Think back over the beauty trends that you remember; overplucked eyebrows are out, and bushy eyebrows are in. Nonexistent butts are out, and curvy bottoms are in.

Not only should society just back off and not even discuss what beauty is or why, but it should stop perpetuating the belief that women need to be all things. Take it from someone who knowsif you over-plucked your eyebrows back then, youre not going to have bushy brows now. Not naturally, anyway.

This gets us into how fake beauty is these days. People apply filters on social media until they look like they have smooth baby alien skin. Then, they cake on the makeup so that they can try to look the same way in real life. And thats the least of our worries! At least makeup washes off. When people start getting injections and surgical procedures to look the way they do on social media or worseto look the way other people look on social media, then we know that we have a serious societal issue on our hands.

Body positivity isnt just for big women, even though thats what most people associate it with. Body positivity is for everyone. Someone who is slender isnt necessarily any happier with their body than someone who is larger. Nor does being thin mean youre healthy. People of all body shapes can have bad habits that lead them to live unhealthy lives. Therefore, body positivity isnt an exclusive movement; its about loving all body types and the people who embody them!