Being body positive is all the rage now. Hey! Look! We love everyone! All sizes! But models are still stick thin & celebrities are still photoshopped. We’re really improving leaps and bounds, people. Anytime anyone throws any sort of “I <3 people of all sizes” comment out there, they seem to either hashtag or genuinely think they are part of a #BodyPositiveMovement. When really, so many of these seemingly well intended campaigns are cursed with an unfortunate double entendre.
Let’s clear something up first- being body positive is all about celebrating all body types. The keyword here is all body types. Not just body types that aren’t widely recognised as “beautiful”- but every single (supposedly healthy) body type you can think of. Shock, horror, surprise, but this includes skinny people too. If we’re going to advocate for equality, we can’t exclude a whole genre of body type simply because they’re different to yours. Isn’t that defeating the purpose of creating a #BodyPositiveMovement, in the first place?
Meghan Trainor put out a cute music video of her bopping around to the tune of her debut single “All About That Bass”. This is not an attack on Meghan or her talent. She’s a talented girl with surely a bright future ahead of her- but it’s a critique of her flawed message that masquerades as being inclusive.
She sings about lifting big girls up, about how men prefer women with something to hold on to (as if that should be a contributing factor to a woman’s self esteem…) which blatantly excludes skinny women from something she calls an asset. If we’re being body positive, why aren’t we celebrating everyone instead of one particular type of person? She also refers to skinny women as “skinny bitches” is it their fault that their body type is so vastly coveted in the media? No. So don’t blame them for it. It’s just as unfair as someone telling a larger woman that she’s not good enough simply because of her weight.
Image credit: Screengrab from Meghan’s video
