Episode 42 The Body Positivity Movement - Good or Bad?

The Body Positivity Movement; which was promising early on, now has some toxic elements to it. In this episode I explore the good, bad and ugly of this movement and what is truly means to be body positive.

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Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay

Transcript

Fiona Kane: 0:32

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast with Fiona Kane. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I'm going to be talking to you about the body positive movement. So I have recently approached this topic in not recently, but earlier in episode five. So you can go back and listen to episode five to hear me talking about it there as well. There I was talking more specifically about the health at every size movement, but this is sort of part of it, so you can go back there to hear my thoughts about that.

Fiona Kane: 1:04

So the body positive movement, it's one of those things that it's like a lot of things, there's good and there's bad, sometimes like two things can be true at the same time, and this is an example of one of those things. So the good thing about the body I can't even say it the good thing about the body positive movement is that it does take the pressure off. For many of us who've been up and down in our weight throughout our lives or we live in different sized bodies, there is always been quite a pressure to feel that you should be a certain size or a certain weight and a lot of many of us have been on many diets and really struggled over the years to try and fit into the mould of whatever attractive was or acceptable was or whatever the going terminology. So many of us have struggled with that and the body positivity movement is essentially an acceptance movement accepting your body and accepting your shape, your size, whatever, and that's really positive for many reasons and one of those is that it does take the pressure off. It does allow you to be accepted for who you are. So it allows you to belong rather than fit in, and anyone who's read any of Brene Brown's work will know that she talks about this. I think it might be in the atlas of the heart, it might be that book, but she did refer talk about that in there, where she was referring to the difference between fitting in and belonging. So fitting in is kind of like bending yourself backwards, upside whatever to to be what you think that the other people want you to be, whereas belonging is just belonging for who you are. Okay. So a movement that does that, that's a really good thing. So the fact that we can just belong, as opposed to try and fit in with others, is overall generally a healthy thing.

Fiona Kane: 3:19

Again, like this, everything's got its limits, so that's a good thing, and you know, and it is okay that we have different bodies, we do have different bodies there's. That's just how it is and not health isn't okay. A size eight or a size 10 isn't the only thing that might be healthy and it may or may not be healthy, because it depends on the whole bunch of other things. So you can be healthy at many sizes absolutely, and you can be very, very unhealthy at either end of the spectrum. So if you're too large, too small, both of those can be really unhealthy and you can be unhealthy in between, right. So there's people of all different sizes who have health issues and there's people of all different sizes who are quite healthy.

Fiona Kane: 4:04

So again, it's not sort of definite sort of your weight absolutely controls your level of health or or explains your level of health. However, yeah, it is a good idea if most of us can be within a certain weight range. I don't know that the BMI is a good one for that, but generally speaking, most human beings do better if we're not carrying too much weight, especially abdominal weight, because abdominal weight does relate a lot to insulin resistance and pre diabetes, which is pre diabetes, and then they can get to diabetes and heart disease and all those nasty things. So, essentially, you know when weight is affecting our health, that is a problem, anyway. So the good thing about the body positive movement is it does it's. It's an acceptance and a belonging, as opposed to trying to fit in, because sometimes trying to fit in, we can do really unhealthy things to do that as well, right. So so it's good in that way and it's good that we do accept that there are different shapes and sizes. I think that's a good thing as well, because everyone needs to be a size 810, six, whatever it is, to be healthy, whatever the latest idea of health or beauty is. It's. Also, I think, it creates some healthy boundaries as well, as far as it allows us to make choices for ourselves and say you know, my boundary is that I'm not going to buy into all of that diet culture or all of that slimming culture or whatever it is. So it empowers people to empower themselves and make choices around those things, because if they're not trying to fit in and they're working on belonging, it's a different thing, right. So I think that does empower people to create some healthy boundaries in their life and for themselves and make choices, maybe not to buy into certain aspects of diet culture and things like that that they may find harmful to them. So that's a good thing.

Fiona Kane: 6:11

So the downside, or the challenge associated with the body positive movement is when we use it as an excuse to completely trash our bodies, when we promote it on TikTok or YouTube or whatever fill in the blanks for whichever social media platform. When we're sharing our day, you know, people sort of complain about the diet culture of you know nutritionists or dietitians. Sharing a day on my plate as being unhealthy. I would argue that you know someone like Lizzo sharing a day on her plate which is full of junk food is also unhealthy. So I think that when we, what happens is in the idea of having acceptance, we've actually gone a little bit further than that, and we're actually almost applauding and encouraging people to trash their bodies and eat a whole bunch of junk food and end up with weight problems and health problems in relation to that. So I and I think what it does is is it that, with this archetypes that we have as human beings and one of those archetypes we have is the archetype of the rebellious child and the rebellious child is the one that says oh, you can, you know, shove all your diet so I'm going to just eat what I want and I'm just going to eat chocolate all day, or, or, or junk food all day, or whatever it is right.

Fiona Kane: 7:55

And the what happens sometimes in this body positive movement is what it does do is it encourages people to be in that mode and to live in that mode, and that is not a healthy place to live. It's a place that you can visit and sometimes we do need to visit that place. If we've had a history of issues around dieting and childhood where we've been restricted and all those things, sometimes it can be healthy to visit the place of the uninhibited, rebellious child who just says up yours and I want to eat what I like. So it's a place that sometimes you know visiting there is a useful thing to and something maybe that is required for you to move to the next place, right, but it's not a place to live, and a lot of these body positive movement people are living there and they're encouraging other people to live there too, and so they're literally encouraging people to trash their bodies and to trash themselves. Right? That is not a healthy movement.

Fiona Kane: 9:03

That is not body positive in my opinion, because to me body positive in the acceptance of your body. Acceptance of your body to me also means inhabiting your body. It means nourishing your body and caring for your body. And so if your idea of the body positive movement is to trash your body and be the rebellious teenager, the rebellious child, that is not body positive at all. It's actually just being a rebellious child. And so even if we want to have our moment to be a rebellious child we all do Sometimes, that's okay we need to move past that and actually move into the mode of the adult, the grown-up, because it actually should be the adult who is driving the car, not the rebellious child.

Fiona Kane: 10:00

And the adult understands the need for connecting with your body and listening to your body and nourishing your body. And part of nourishing your body means eating a healthy diet and it doesn't mean you can't. Like I've talked about it before in other episodes. Nourishing can also mean sometimes having the chocolate or sometimes doing the thing. That's fine. Sometimes we're nourishing the soul, but generally speaking, we're nourishing our body and we forget sometimes and I think I have talked about this before but there's language we use. We use language around freedom and we talk about our freedom to do what we want. And so sometimes, when we see this again, this body positive movement, it's like, oh, we've got the freedom to do what we want. Yay, we've got the freedom to do what we want and freedom from having to do the diet or be a certain way or be expected to look a certain way, whatever, and like that can be great. There's a lot about that. It can be great. But we also have the freedom to and the freedom that we have the freedom to is the freedom to look after our body, the freedom to inhabit and embrace and respect and nourish ourselves, right, so there's a freedom to do that? So I think there's.

Fiona Kane: 11:16

Sometimes we get caught up in the freedom from and oh, I don't have to do anything. It's like you know, kid, leaving school, you walk out the school, you throw, and I remember this I was 15 when I left school. I remember like throwing, away school books, and I don't have to do any of that anymore, right, and it's true, you've got the freedom from having to do that, but the truth is you're now an adult, even though I was 15, I took on an adult life then and now you're an adult. You have to actually do grown up things. So there's actually also the freedom to the things I still needed to do.

Fiona Kane: 11:48

And, essentially, if you want a life where you are well and where you stay functional and you get to enjoy your life, for most of that, we really need to respect our bodies. In order to do that, there are a handful of people that get away with it, but that's not most of us, right. So, essentially, you know we need to learn how to nourish ourselves. And if your idea of the body positive movement is, yes, to accept who you are, that you're a certain shape, size, whatever because we have pears and apples and this and that, and tall and short and all the rest of it and that you know you might carry a bit more weight and you might just be completely different size to other people all of those things and accept that there's a certain amount of just who we are, that is who we are Absolutely. And if your idea of the body positive movement is not only do you accept that, but then you also love and support and nourish that and nourish your body to be the healthiest version of whatever, what, what it can be within the bounds of what's going on for you, that can be a really, really positive thing.

Fiona Kane: 12:56

If you see the body positive movement as a way to embrace the child who is rebellious and who's just going to trash yourself, that's not a very healthy movement and it's like all movements. There's always different parts of a movement and there's, like parts there's this parts that can be toxic. So essentially, there's really positive and really great parts of the body positive movement. There are also really really toxic parts of the body positive movement, like all movements. So just have an awareness around. If you're buying into that movement, which can be a really good thing, but have an awareness around what you're buying into, what your feelings are around it, what will be supportive of you and like a lot of things.

Fiona Kane: 13:39

Sometimes we just need to. We choose what to accept and reject. So you kind of say, okay, these bits are good, I really like this, I can work with this, that is fabulous and that really is positive for me and nourishing for me. These bits over here not so good, not so nourishing for me. I'm not going to take part in that, right, so that we can take parts in, because I know that lately kind of politically politically people have gotten really all kind of like all in or all out with things. We don't have to be all in or all out with things. We can pick and choose.

Fiona Kane: 14:15

So you can see a movement and say, okay, look, I'm looking at this movement and there's all of these aspects of the movement that I just love and I really relate to those, I really into those and I'm going to just be part of that. That is just really what I want to do. You can also say these parts of it that don't work for me and I'm not not gonna be part of that and that is fine. So don't get caught up in. We have to be all or nothing or we have to accept the whole shebang just because someone what's the cross? This is what we need to accept. Notice, to accept the parts that work for you. So just a reminder that the body, positive movement, it can and is a great thing for many people and I think it is a healthy thing to come along. And I think that it was absolutely needed, because I grew up in the diet culture and I understand it, understand that, like many movements, as often or usually really good, there's a good heart behind it, is a good reason behind it, there's sense behind it. Then there is also the people who take it too far, or people who come toxic with things, and so we just have to have an awareness around, being aware of that, having a radar for that and not buying into the things that are not going to be helpful for you.

Fiona Kane: 15:38

Today as well, just as I forgot to say in the beginning, I so I studied with the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, with Marc David, who's based in Colorado, and today I had a call. This morning, I had a call with the alumni of people who did my course, and this is something that Marc was discussing, so I just also want to credit him that. Not word for word. A lot of this is my version of it, so I don't want to. I want to credit him for inspiring and for teaching me some of this, but I also don't want to pretend he said things he didn't say. This is my words. However, I was inspired by that and one of the people in the group at your mind and me of that part of browns Work as well, where she talks about the difference between Difference, between being as opposed to, as opposed to belonging, so so that's just. I was inspired by my group this morning, so, thanks to my group and thanks to Marc David, who is my mentor for this.

Fiona Kane: 16:41

Anyway, just so you know that this is a kind of what that I do with clients. I work with people in regards to nutrition, but also in regards to some of the psychology stuff around it. So that's just for your information. If you need someone to help you with this, I work online mostly as well, and also in the Hawkesbury in Sydney. Anyway, I hope that this has been helpful for you.

Fiona Kane: 17:03

Sometimes I think people get caught up in having to buy a whole but whole shebang of something. Or they get confused when they see toxic elements of it and and you know it's not. It's not Scientology. You don't have to join it and totally devote and agree with all of it or whatever other religions or cults or other things that are around there. So, not just picking on Scientology, but it's, it's ripe for the picking. It is these things where you can pick and choose what works for you. So do that, look after yourself and use your, use your intuition to be part of what is right for you. Anyway, I hope that was useful for you.

Fiona Kane: 17:43

Please like, subscribe and share. It would mean a lot to me. If you do that, share, share this with your friends, tell your friends about it. And also, if you're watching this on YouTube or rumble where you can make, do comments, please comment and tell me. Or if you're watching it on on your Facebook or something like that. But please comment and let me know what you think about this topic. Do you think I'm right? Do you think that that I'm wrong about some of this? Just my, my request is always just conversations to be respectful. That's all. We can have different opinions, but still be respectful. So, anyway, I hope this is useful and I will talk to you all again soon. Thank you, bye, bye.