Is Body Positivity Making Obesity the Norm?

I’ve recently seen an increase in the number of social media posts about body positivity.

Women and men of all different shapes, sizes, ethnicities, ages etc, sharing images of themselves with captions about body positivity.

Whilst I think this is great in some aspects, other aspects make me wonder if what this movement is actually doing is normalising obesity?

I’m all for loving your body the way it is, and I’m no stranger to being overweight. I’ve lost two stone, taken up running, am more aware of what I eat and I’m now considered a healthy weight for my body shape, age and height, but it hasn’t always been that way.

Some days, I’d look in the mirror and hate what stares back at me. Other days, I’d think to myself, you don’t look too bad, just learn to love yourself and don’t worry about what others see when they look at you.

Yes, I think it’s great that we love ourselves and are confident about the way we look, but surely if you’re overweight and unhealthy, sharing an image of yourself with captions about body positivity is just normalising obesity, or perhaps it’s a guise to hide behind?

If I keep telling myself it’s ok to be overweight, and that I don’t look bad, then it’s ok. After all, we’re all different which is great. I just need to learn to love myself the way I am, even I am obese.

I know it’s hard to loose weight, trust me, and it’s just as hard to maintain a weight loss, but images of men and women who are overweight promoting body positivity is something I struggle with.

With obesity comes a number of health problems and that only gets worse the older you get. When you’re elderly, overweight and can’t get out of a chair without getting out of breath, will you look back at those pictures and still think you look good, or will you look back at them and wish you’d made an effort to lose weight, and be healthy?