When body positivity becomes problematic

It's one thing to be encouraged to accept your body, no matter what size it is. But some 'fat activists' have gone too far in encouraging self-love The body positivity movement started off as a counter to skinny culture, but it's gone down a social media rabbit hole. Some aspects of it are now sending out dangerous messagesForget thin is in, apparently now bigger is better... or is it?After over a decade of body positivity, girls, teens and women are even more confused about what body positivity actually is.The movement began with women confronting unrealistic expectations of how their bodies should look. But sub-strands of the movement have muddied the waters and mystified the initial message of the acceptance of bodies no matter what the size, and self-love.On top of that, unrealistic beauty standards the movement intended to get rid of, still exist.Hannah Tunnicliffe is an author specialising in body acceptance, eating disorder recovery and mental health. She thinks progress has been minimal."I have three daughters, and there's a lot of pressure on them to have beautiful eyelashes, big round bums, and really there's still that pressure to be thin and have that certain look," she says.Kate Manne is an associate professor in philosophy at Cornell University in New York, she's also critical about where the movement has ended up. "I think that for a lot of people it's lost its radical roots... it has become to some extent a matter of often centering thin white bodies who are celebrating a mere roll of flesh or a couple of stretch marks. It doesn't always end up centering the bodies that the movement was designed to centre," she says.While Manne agrees that all bodies should be accepted and treated positively, she argues the movement intended to centre those who have been historically devalued because of the way they look."It's true that we can say that we should be positive about all bodies, but that ends up being a little bit like the phrase 'all lives matter'. No one doubts that all lives matter, the thing is that when someone points out that certain bodies are devalued or subject to aesthetic derogation, it's trying to highlight particular forms of marginalisation that deserve to be centered in political movements," she says.While some of the narratives which have sprouted out of the body positivity movement, like health at every size (HAES for short) and fat activism carry positive elements, there are some at the more extreme end which health professionals say are potentially harmful. …Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details