How Body Positivity Could Potentially Harm More Than Help

Recently, there has been a phenomenon spreading throughout the Unites States that encourages body positivity and detests body shaming. Although this may sound helpful and encouraging, it could also lead to a false sense of health for people who are within the obese category. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity can have serious effects on a person’s physical, metabolic, and psychological health. Medical Director and Chief Executive Officer, Michael J. Gonzalez-Campoy, illustrates the rapid growing percentage of Americans who qualify as obese which is currently at 35% of the population (Gonzalez-Campoy). One of the main goals of the “body positivity” movement is to encourage people to accept all body types in order to build confidence and acceptance of all body types (Cherry). This message from the body positivity movement unifies people under a false understanding that not taking care of the need of your body has no effect on an individual's wellbeing or daily life.

Having people believe that there was no problem in ignoring their bodies health needs did not help this increasing prevalence percentage. Instead, it did the opposite. It increased the already growing percentage. Figure 1 represents a graph showing the obesity prevalence and severe obesity prevalence in the United States popul

ation. In 2012, the body positivity movement changed their message to “all bodies are beautiful” instead of “fat bodies who have legitimate issues are beautiful”. On the graph at the 2011-2012 mark, there is a rather large spike that continues on through 2017-2018 and beyond. One could argue that the entire graph is an upward trend and that the 2011-2012 spike is just a part of the trend. However, all of the previous had small spikes and small declines while the 2011-2012 spike is the largest and longest upward trend (CDC). The statistical analysis therefore shows that there is a high likelihood that there is a correlation between the increase in the prevalence of obesity and increase in body positivity movement popularity.

Figure 1: Obesity prevalence in the United States over years

The reason why the increase in obesity in Americans through the body positivity movement is so significant is because of the health risks that come with being obese. To reiterate, there is a fine line between being obese and being overweight. Health risks range from long to short term and can be mental, physical or both. Not to mention, obesity has been scientifically linked to increase the risk of cancers such as liver, cervical, colon, and many more. One may be thinking that all of these potential risks sound horrible. These should definitely not be health factors that someone strives to gain but instead want to prevent. With the new message from the body positivity movement, people are not dissuaded from the risk factors that could affect overall health. Instead, they are almost encouraged to do so.

The current message of “all bodies are beautiful”, presented by the body positivity movement, must be changed if Americans can hope to better themselves in the coming years. This message, although initially put in place for a good cause, has drifted away from its original purpose and is now causing more damage than good. With the constant encouragement of ignoring an individual's needs, that person is more likely to experience physical and mental disorders. This means that even though the movement aims to increase the mental state of the population, it actually hurts it and takes a toll on the body as well. The recent increase in popularity of the body positivity movement has a strong correlation with the upward trend in prevalence of obesity in Americans which seems to only be growing increasingly each year. A change must be made to the current message so that the American population is encouraged to make a change in their daily lives to make themselves healthier. This does not involve looking down on others who are trying their best to better their health, but instead encourages them to keep striving toward a healthy goal.