HOT TAKE: Body Neutrality > Body Positivity
Last week I shared some deep thoughts on Insta that I’ve been stewing over for a while now.
All about a touchy subject: body positivity.
IM(humble)O, most of us don’t need more body positivity messages in our lives, on our newsfeeds or taking up space on our Pinterest boards.
Don’t get me wrong, the body positivity movement was important and necessary. Heck, it still is in a lot of ways.
Loving & embracing your body (& everyone else’s) no matter the size, shape, color, ability, etc. is amazing. We love that. Obviously that’s not a bad thing.
& I’ll also interject here to clarify that I understand that I likely haven’t faced as many struggles with my body not being accepted as others have. Generally, I live in a body that’s widely accepted.
But for so many other women this movement has turned sour, too.
My “issue” if you want to call it that, with body positivity isn’t the message.
It’s how this push for accepting & embracing bodies (which is great) has still kept the conversation centered on how bodies look. It keeps re-centering the conversation over & over again on how we look in the mirror.
And in this conversation (that normally takes place in lengthy captions accompanied by photos of bodies distorted just enough to get the perfect amount of stomach rolls) we are constantly looking at & comparing bodies.
All the while completely ignoring what those bodies are capable of doing.
Which is a lot of really freaking cool things.
Like carry in all your groceries in one trip
or hold a laughing toddler on one hip as you sweep the kitchen with your other arm
or climb mountains and hike miles of trails
or lift your bodyweight off the gym floor
or so many other things that would take me way too long to list on a Sunday when I’m writing this blog post.
& so it seems this body positive conversation conveniently leaves out the much more empowering narrative; the confidence & power that comes from focusing on what our bodies are capable of doing & what they do for us every single day.
Instead, women who live in bodies generally accepted by society continue screaming into the void that “you can love your body no matter how much your thighs jiggle!” while somehow also making you hyperaware of that exact jiggle you never noticed before.
So maybe you don’t need to follow more accounts telling you that you can love your body just how it is now…
but maybe you would THRIVE if you started to purposefully shift the conversation from how your body looks to what your body is capable of doing.
Maybe it’s body neutrality you want to embrace more than body positivity.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Have thoughts? I want to hear them.
Drop your thoughts in the comments 👇🏼
Hey, I’m Kirsi!
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