The popularization of weight loss has established a billion-dollar industry that perpetuates strong opinions about a body’s appearance. By definition, neutrality means abstaining from expressing strong opinions about either side of an argument. In this case, body neutrality encourages folks to focus on a body’s function rather than its appearance. A body’s appearance has been given the power to cause celebration and provoke shame. However, in recent conversations around bodies, subscribing to body neutrality allows a person to escape body positivity and body negativity (or shaming). Often our feelings about ourselves make their way into how we judge others. Sometimes those personal feelings develop during our upbringings or young adult years. Still, recent developments say body neutrality is the internet’s new trend and here’s why everyone’s embracing it.
What Is Body Positivity?
Body positivity, said to have begun in the 2010s, became a social media sensation and buzzword celebrated by folks of all body shapes. Its focus was on communities of people whose bodies had been shamed within mainstream society. Larger-bodied folks were (and are) at the center of this movement, inspiring people of all sizes who have negative opinions about their bodies to embrace their differences. This embrace of difference was celebrated not only by everyday people but by brands, too, some of which had a history of doing the opposite. In all cases, though, the focus was on positivity: leaning into strong positive opinions about a body’s appearance more than its function. Now, with the use of Ozempic going beyond diabetes management and weight loss methods becoming easier to access and quicker to achieve, we might be in the market for something a little stronger.
What Is Body Neutrality?
While many tout body positivity as this freeing method of all bodies being embraced, there was a level of commercialization that impacted being able to win everyone over. It became a ploy for marketing that celebrated certain larger bodies over others: again, the ones that were most “attractive” because of hourglass shapes, skin tones, hair textures, etc. Body neutrality, however, takes the embrace of our bodies one step further by saying to focus less on how they look and accept it for what it is. The levels of stress around the body’s appearance are taught to be removed and eventually land at an ebb and flow place of acceptance being the true embrace. Body neutrality, now said to be the preferred method, is the internet’s new trend and everyone’s embracing it because it helps to remove life’s focus from the body altogether.
What Is Body Negativity or Shaming?
Unfortunately, we know body negativity (or shaming) all too well. We may or may not have experienced it ourselves, but we’ve just about all witnessed it. Whether via the media’s interpretations of beauty in their magazines and news updates or simply the trends within fashion. Skinny bodies are celebrated in a more mainstream light. Fatness has long been at the center of body negativity, whether subscribed to by the body owner or a body observer. And while no one can make you feel one way or another, the influence of media, social media, and faddy movements have an impact. No matter which one you subscribe to, body positivity, body neutrality, or body negativity, the decision is yours.
Your body is yours to have, to feel about and everything in between. It is, however, encouraged by these movements to develop your opinions, even if it means not having (expressing) one at all. Reminder: you only have one body. Why not embrace it and love it in a way that feels good and healthy to you?