Body Positivity vs. Body Neutrality
Body Positivity vs. Body Neutrality
Medically reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD
June 11, 2021
Verywell / Jiaqi Zhou
Body positivity is a social, worldwide movement focusing on equality and acceptance for all body types and sizes. One of the goals is to challenge how our society, particularly all forms of media, presents and views the physical human body.
Plastic surgery, injections, dangerous diet culture, and extreme workout regimens became the norm for decades as skinny jeans and size two waists seemed to be the perfect body type for mainstream society. This “skinny” culture quickly led to low self-esteem, depression, alcoholism, and extreme eating disorders. In the early 2000s, the Internet was the primary place where body shaming and body love were spread.
People were commonly shamed and bullied for being “overweight,” but many individuals started speaking out on normalizing all body types, regardless of size and weight.
The popular buzzword “body positivity” emerged all over the Internet in 2012. However, it has a much deeper history and goes back to the late 1960s. Shortly after the "body positivity" movement emerged, body neutrality made its introduction as an alternative approach to body positivity. Instead of focusing on loving your body no matter what, body neutrality is a philosophy that focuses on what your body can do for you.
This article defines body positivity and body neutrality, the advantages and disadvantages of each movement, and discusses how we as a society, can adopt both movements to better enhance our lives.
The Body Positive Movement
In 1969, an engineer, who was angry about how the world was treating "fat" people, established The National Association to Aid Fat Americans. Today this organization is known as the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), the world’s longest-running fat rights organization.
This fat acceptance movement focused on ending fat-shaming and discrimination against individuals who did not fit society’s mold according to their body shape and size.
In 1996, after entering eating disorder treatment, a psychotherapist coined the term “body positive” after finding the website bodypositive.org. This website offers resources and material designed to help people accept who they are and love their body shape.
During this time, society started to learn that “skinny” is not the only way a human body should be viewed and loved.
What Is Body Positivity?
As it is known today, the body positive movement began to emerge across all media channels around 2012. The goal was to shift unrealistic feminine beauty standards into a more whole-bodied, realistic approach.
Bodies come in all shapes and sizes. Cellulite and wrinkles are normal. Exercise and diet plans can be extremely unhealthy, and instead, we should focus on eating whole, nutritious foods and loving our bodies as they are. This movement emphasizes that “all bodies are beautiful.”
The body positive movement has grown increasingly popular and has developed a wide array of criticism and stigma.
Criticism of the Body Positivity Movement
Today, it is nearly impossible to log into social media without being inundated with diet and exercise ads with hashtags #bodylove, #bodypositivity, #allbodiesarecreatedequal, #loveyourbody, and #allbodiesarebeautiful.
Individuals are proud to show their body imperfections and promote #fatculture; however, there is a lot of harassment, pushback, and criticism against the movement.
Body Positivity and Obesity Culture
Many people believe that the body positive movement has created an unhealthy culture that allows people to disregard the medical complications that often come with obesity. Obesity is linked to diabetes and heart disease, and many advocates of the body positivity movement often criticize this research.
There seems to be a line drawn in the sand between accepting all body types regardless of the health risks and promoting healthy and sound life choices while still going against the dangerous diet and skinny culture.
Many medical professionals will argue that there is an unhealthy weight and a healthy weight, which is very different from being skinny or fat. Individuals can be thin and unhealthy or overweight and unhealthy.
Being "skinny" does not automatically promote overall good health, and being too underweight can come with other medical complications such as osteoporosis and hormonal imbalances. As a result, many medical doctors encourage eating a whole balanced diet and regular exercise.
These should be fun lifestyle choices and not be forced upon us. Engaging in exercise regimens that we enjoy is extremely important. This can vary with each person. Whether it is walking the dog, going for a run, joining a gym, doing a home workout, practicing yoga, playing a sport, skiing, hiking, or biking, there are plenty of ways to exercise.
Routine exercise can reduce your risk of diabetes and heart disease and make you feel good about yourself. This mindset also works for eating whole, nutritious foods. Share recipes, cook with friends, subscribe to a recipe delivery service, grow your veggie garden; are all ways to adopt healthy eating that can also be fun.
Too Much Focus on Appearance
On the other end of the spectrum, the body positive movement can make people obsess over their appearances that they forget all the other important aspects of their life and individuality. As a result, many individuals may engage in dangerous diet culture and exercise regimens because they feel pressured to love their bodies.
As humans, we are multifaceted, and our physical appearance is just one of the many facets of our existence. Our physical appearance does not define who we are.
It can be difficult to love your body daily, especially when you may be feeling bloated or feel that your clothes are not fitting you like they are supposed to. Sometimes we feel down and tired, and we don’t feel good about our body shape and appearance.
This can lead us to feel guilty that we are not embracing the body positive culture and that little voice in our heads keep telling us that we need to do better and be more accepting.
Some days we are not going to feel good about ourselves, and that is okay. While other days, we will feel great in anything we wear. Body positivity means appreciating and loving the body you have and not criticizing yourself over changes that happen naturally due to aging, pregnancy, or lifestyle choices.
The Body Neutrality Movement
Body neutrality is a different approach from body positivity. Instead of focusing on loving your body no matter what, body neutrality is a philosophy that focuses on what your body can do for you.
What Is Body Neutrality?
Body neutrality was coined after the body positivity movement began to curb the extreme criticism associated with body positivity and fat acceptance. The term was coined around 2015 as bloggers, celebrities, and intuitive eating coaches helped promote this movement to steer away from the link between physical appearance and self-worth.
Body neutrality promotes accepting your body as is and recognizing its remarkable abilities and non-physical characteristics instead of the physical appearance.
Body neutrality means taking a neutral perspective towards your body, meaning that you do not have to cultivate a love for your body or feel that you have to love your body every day. You may not always love your body, but you may still live happily and appreciate everything your body can do.
For example, your body can run, ski, carry bags of groceries, give hugs to loved ones, birth a child, and take you to many places around the world. Your body can do amazing things!
When you eat an extra donut or add that extra splash of heavy cream to your coffee in the morning, you satisfy your body by eating intuitively and practicing body neutrality.
Body neutrality commonly goes hand in hand with mindfulness in the sense that when you respect your body, give it care, nutrition, rest, and movement, you will notice how good you begin to feel and how well your body functions.
Adopting Both Practices
Although body neutrality was coined to circumnavigate the body positivity movement, both of these terms can be practiced simultaneously. It is not required to pick one movement over the other.
Body Positivity
Promotes strong self-esteem
Encourages others to love their body
Encourages others to care for their body
Body Neutrality
Emphasizes what your body can do
Encourages mindfulness
Focuses on the body as a vessel rather than what it looks like
One day, you can love your body, and the next day you may struggle with your appearance but still appreciate your body for what it can do.
You can adopt body neutrality mindsets such as practicing mindful eating and exercise to build the body you desire.
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6 Tips For Coping With COVID Anxiety This Fall And Winter
6 Tips For Coping With COVID Anxiety This Fall And Winter
September 4, 20217:13 AM ET
APRIL FULTON
One neuroscientist finds that simply savoring a cup of tea as a daily morning ritual has helped her quell anxious thoughts in pandemic times. "It felt like I finally had a great excuse to just be present and enjoy the breeze and warmth of the bowl of tea and the reflections that I could see on the surface," she says.
As the days get shorter and nights longer, the delta variant of the coronavirus is still very much with us, sad to say. It's already clear the next couple of seasons won't be the "life as usual" we all hoped for.
"People have a lot of frustration. People have been doing this a long time, and they thought by now things would be in a different position," says Vickie Mays, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
We're likely to see pockets of outbreaks and increased restrictions again with every surge in local cases and hospitalizations, says Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease professor at the University of Michigan. And that's leaving some of us feeling a little anxious, to say the least.
So what are some ways we can manage our anxiety as the days get a little darker and we pull the masks back on?
The good news is that this winter we know what masking up and other restrictions look like and we know how they can make us feel. Here are a few tools our experts recommend to help us deal with it all:
Reframe how you think of anxiety
Reframing can be a valuable tool. It takes feelings or emotions you have and turns them into something useful. For anxiety, learn exactly why you feel anxious and accept that it's totally normal. New York University neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki explains that uncertainty provokes anxiety — that sweaty, stomach-dropping feeling you get when you are on high alert — which is a natural stress response system of the body.
Suzuki, who is the author of a book coming out this month called Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion, says instead of approaching anxiety as a negative emotion that must be suppressed, we should think of it as a superpower that motivates us to act. It helped our ancestors escape lions, she says. It's that "quick hit of cortisol," along with adrenaline, that helps a mother lift a car off her toddler.
Suzuki also suggests changing your "what if" list into a "to do" list. Your "what if" list is the list you make in your head about all the things that could go wrong — like what if I can't get on a plane to see my mom this winter? Instead of sitting there stewing, do something when you feel worried, says Suzuki. Start by making a list of actions you can take, for example, to ensure you stay connected with your far-flung family this winter: Host a video chat, write a letter, plan to take an online cooking class together.
The secret is deep breathing.
Wendy Suzuki, New York University neuroscientist
Learn to breathe yourself calm
If you find yourself feeling anxious or angry, activate your parasympathetic nervous system. "The secret is deep breathing," Suzuki says, and you can do it wherever you are. Inhale deeply while you count to 4, and then exhale while you count to 4. Repeat until calm.
There are many apps that can help you learn to breathe more slowly, including Calm and Insight Timer. Stop, Breathe & Think Kids includes one exercise in which you trace your fingers up as you breathe in, hold for a second at the top and then trace your fingers down as you breathe out. It's called five finger breathing, and it works for grown-ups too!
Move your body
You can fight anxiety with physical movement. Feeling anxious all the time, as many people have since the coronavirus pandemic began, has a lot of long-term health implications, Suzuki says. It "can cause everything from heart disease, digestive problems like ulcers, long-term reproductive problems" and even damage to brain cells.
Exercise, even just 10 minutes a day, makes a difference. "Every time you move your body, it's like you're giving your brain a wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals, including dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline," Suzuki says. "These are the neurochemicals that naturally decrease anxiety, stress levels and depression levels."
Research shows exercise can ease panic attacks and mood and sleep disorders too, and a study in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry found that joining a team sport might be even better than hitting the gym alone.
Planning to exercise is half the battle, Seattle personal trainer Salina Duggan told NPR recently, and if you can't go outside because of the weather, it might feel even more challenging. But it doesn't have to be. Get a yoga mat and put it near your workspace.
Connect with others
Being with other people is a critical part of maintaining our mental health and something many of us either stopped doing or moved online during the initial period of tight COVID-19 restrictions last year.
But this winter will not be like the last one, Malani says, "because we have safe, highly effective vaccines." She says the advice she gives everyone is the same that she gives to her own parents: "Make sure the people that you're spending time with are fully vaccinated."
Every time you move your body, it's like you're giving your brain a wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals, including dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline.
Wendy Suzuki
Yes, breakthrough infections among people who have been vaccinated can happen, she says, and we still don't know enough yet about how often, "but it's really unlikely" that you'll get seriously ill if you hang out with other vaccinated people.
So go on vacation, visit your parents, see the friend you haven't seen in a while, she advises, but take precautions and keep an eye on what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends and how high the transmission rate is where you're going. Consider keeping a mask on indoors when you make those visits, especially if you're going to be around small children who can't be vaccinated or around people who have compromised immune systems.
"The risk isn't zero, but it's offset by the benefits," Malani says.
Find a ritual that's meaningful to you, and maybe even share it
Long before the pandemic, Suzuki searched for ways to incorporate ritual in meditation to soothe her own anxiety. She found it when she participated in a tea ceremony in Bali, Indonesia, in 2015. In the ceremony, a monk silently brewed and poured several rounds of tea into handmade ceramic tea bowls for guests.
"It felt like I finally had a great excuse to just be present and enjoy the breeze and warmth of the bowl of tea and the reflections that I could see on the surface," she says. Since then, she repeats the silent tea meditation herself nearly every morning and, during the pandemic, has shared it on Zoom as a way to connect with friends.
Accept that our new normal may be abnormal
As much as we wish it away, the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is here to stay for a while, and we have to find ways to manage our risks and take care of our mental health for the long haul.
"For some of us, we are still searching for this magical moment when everything is going to come back to normal," Malani says. "And, you know, unfortunately, that isn't going to happen."
