In a culture seemingly obsessed with the perfect form, from sculpted curves to six-pack abs, the growing body positive movement offers an accepting alternative: embracing one’s individual shape and size, rather than focusing on a perceived physical ideal.
Advocates say a goal of body positivity is to improve a person’s overall well-being. While critics warn against complacency, experts say taking a more balanced approach toward how we view our bodies can help bring more sensibility to the way we eat, perhaps replacing unhealthy patterns — like uncontrolled binging followed by severe food restriction — that are sometimes employed to keep up outward appearances.
“For 20 years we have been helping free people to make peace with their bodies, to have a positive relationship with food and movement and to really build their self-love,” says Connie Sobczak, author of “Embody: Learning to Love Your Unique Body” and co-founder and executive director of The Body Positive. Centrally involved in the body positive movement, the national organization based in Berkeley, California, trains individuals — from students and educators to therapists and dietitians — to use research-based curriculum to start their own body positive programs in an effort to free people from self-hatred and to value their own beauty and identity. “We believe that body positivity is for people of every single size,” Sobczak says. “It’s for all people, it’s for all genders, it’s for all ethnicities. She adds that the body positive movement “is a feminist movement for all people — feminist meaning that it’s inclusive, it’s based on dialogue and community.” She says there’s no hierarchy or patriarchy.
Sobczak herself struggled with bulimia — an eating disorder marked by a cycle of extreme overeating followed by behaviors like purging to undo the effects of overeating — in her teens and early 20s. And malnutrition contributed to the death of her sister, who suffered from bulimia and anorexia, which involves self-starvation. In becoming accepting of her body and healing from her eating disorder, she says she began to view food differently. “There was suddenly no need to try to use food to change who I was,” she says. “I saw food as this — not just a way to sustain myself physically, but as this beautiful creative aspect of my life.” The colors and textures of food came to life, and her interest in cooking grew. She says this fundamental shift has allowed her to enjoy food in a sustainable way, rather than treating food as an enemy.
“The body shaming and insecurity around one’s shape and size is sort of inherent in eating disorders,” says Marjorie Nolan Cohn, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and a registered dietitian nutritionist in Philadelphia who specializes in treating eating disorders. “We have a lot of work to do in terms of just getting more people on board with having it be OK to not be perfect — and that our health is way more important than the shape or size of our thighs.”
[See: How to Stop Emotional Eating.]
For many other people, a hyper-focus on being thin or even heavily muscled can lead to poor eating habits, like restrictive dieting or overreliance on supplements like creatine.
Fortunately, at least in the case of thinness, there is some indication that body dissatisfaction is decreasing among women. Women still consistently report being more dissatisfied with their bodies in regards to thinness than men. But a review of more than 250 studies — representing more than 100,000 participants and stretching 31 years from 1981 to 2012 — analyzing how people feel about their bodies found so-called “thinness-oriented dissatisfaction” has decreased gradually among women and girls. Boy’s and men’s dissatisfaction with musculature, meanwhile, remains steady and higher than for their female counterparts, according to research published online in November in the journal Psychological Bulletin.
“We hope the reason is because body dissatisfaction, generally speaking, is going down and being replaced with body diversity, body acceptance, body appreciation — this body positivity,” says Bryan Karazsia, an associate professor of psychology at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. An alternate theory is that a drive to be lean — thin and toned, together — may be simply shifting the focus away from thinness toward a newer body ideal, or a focus on leanness, Karazsia says. However, he reiterates, the competing hypothesis is that women are more accepting of themselves.
Given the association between body dissatisfaction and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, like restrictive dieting, Karazsia sees reason for a societal shift that highlights healthy lifestyle changes — even when paying a compliment, for example — rather than putting the focus on appearance. “If someone’s exercising a lot and eating right, our tendency is to say, ‘Wow, you look great.’ And while that might be in the immediate moment reinforcing and positive, it can also put the emphasis on appreciating someone on their body,” he says. Instead, he recommends providing encouragement and focusing the conversation around what a person’s doing to be healthier and more active.
[See: The Eating Disorder Spectrum — From Pregorexia to Drunkorexia.]
“All things in moderation,” says Chris Leeth, a clinical mental health counselor and assistant director of counseling at the University of the Incarnate Word — a small private Catholic liberal arts school in San Antonio. He notes that a person can go too far in accepting the status quo as well — deciding they don’t need to do anything to improve their health, whether eating well or exercising. “I think that’s going too extreme … if you are having a difficult time sleeping and your quality of life is being hindered because of your weight or your diet or something metabolic or medical that should be changed. I think that’s going too far to ignore that there can be medical consequences.”
But Leeth, who is also a lecturer at the University of Texas, says self-acceptance and body positivity reinforce that you can indulge from time to time, without falling off the wagon altogether. “It’s what we would call psychological flexibility,” he says. “[You’re] able to have an off day and be OK about it. You’re not going to go home and take it out on someone else or on yourself, maybe perhaps by overindulging and not by restricting to starvation.”
Given the current obesity epidemic and how added pounds can increase the risk for a host of health conditions — ranging from heart disease and Type 2 diabetes to arthritis — it’s sometimes necessary to get down to a smaller size. Experts emphasize that self-acceptance isn’t meant to undermine those efforts, but rather to provide a positive foundation so a person can begin to take steps to improve overall wellness. “It’s not about having that perfect body. It’s about getting to a place where you’re physically healthier and you’re emotionally healthier,” Cohn says. She adds from her experience treating eating disorders: “When someone is more accepting of their body shape and size, more often than not, the choices around food and how they take care of themselves … become easier,” she says. “Because you’re not trying to control your body so much anymore.”
[See: 8 Weird Ways Obesity Makes You Sick.]
Rather than physical appearance, Cohn advises paying attention to what makes your body feel good. That starts with getting more sleep so you won’t crave all manner of fats and sugar and other junk food to stay awake throughout the day. To eat more veggies on the go, Cohn advises cooking in bulk so you have leftovers for a least a couple days. And while you’re at it, drink more water. Simple measures with a single aim: essentially to treat your body right — from the inside out.
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Could Body Positivity Improve Your Relationship With Food? originally appeared on usnews.com
