Warning: Opinion Article

by Ryan (ryansgalaxy)

The body-positive movement is relatively new and is catered towards the idea that "everyone is beautiful, no matter their body types." But I think the body-positive movement means that your body does not define you. You can be such a sweet person, with only good intentions and like, go to mass every Sunday and volunteers at the shelters and plays with the puppies, but be on the more 'obese' side. You can also be a f**king c*nt (pardon my French) but look completely flawless even on your worst days. It's all on the inside, not to be cheesy. And I don't know about you, but I'd MUCH rather be friends/date the person with the puppies. Didn't even think twice about the way they look.

I can't really say too much about the body positive movement because I have never been body-dysmorphic, never had an ED, never been body shamed. But I CAN say I've observed the other side of the spectrum and it's not all it's cracked up to be either. It's not bad, but I definitely don't feel better than anyone else who is heavier than me. I mean, all the time I wish I had curves, or a bigger ass, or something to that effect. And it's weird when people pick me up and throw me around like a rag doll, or wrap their hands around my wrists and marvel at how f**king small they are for god's sake. But my bra size is a 34A and sometimes (usually in the summer time, when my feminine side is more prominent) I wish they were bigger. Hell, finally fitting into a bra was like crossing a rite of passage for me.

That isn't to say the body positive movement is completely foreign to me. In fact, I live in a fairly obese area (at least, according to the internet and my observations). Of Wisconsin, I live by Milwaukee. According to this cool site called WalletHub, The Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis area ranks 75th on the most obese cities in the US. 75 seems pretty far down, but in reality, that's still a pretty high ranking. I know a ton of people who are bigger than me and of course, many of them are unhappy with the way they look. That's why the body-positive movement is so important, at least to all of us as a community here. I'm gonna be a junior in high school next year (I'm 16) and it's such an important time to let go and learn to be happy with yourself when you're in high school because the older you get, the harder it is to dig yourself out of a depression hole.

So many people I know are ashamed of their bodies; like it makes me sad just thinking about it. Many stories of people who were depressed and suicidal and self harmed felt ashamed of their bodies. A lot of personal stories I've read said somewhere in their story, "So I cut on the fattest part of me--my thighs/stomach/etc." And it gets me every time because I know people who do that and think like that.

Now a lil talk about eating disorders. I know you all know the popular ones--anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating, purging, etc. Of course, there are many eating disorders out there, and not all of them are even related to BDD. But for now, let's focus on BDD-influenced ones.

Alecia wrote some articles on the types of EDs and how to handle a situation in which you find yourself knowing someone with an ED and needs help. Honestly, both of those articles are very important. Being informed to understand EDs and to know how to handle that sort of situation is important, especially today, with EDs becoming a more and more... popular way of handling the BDD situation. And let's not forget Max's article about the media distorting body image to create an 'ideal' type. I don't want to spoil it for you, though, if you haven't already read them.

Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa--two of the most popular EDs out there--are notorious for offering a quick, easy route to a skinner body, and for the most part go hand-in-hand with body dysmorphic disorder. Is the media to blame? Well, I'd say... yeah. The media is to blame. Media creates an image, media glorifies people of a certain type, leading to the general public to only prefer people fitting the media's criteria, leading to people who fall out of the ideal image area to start looking for new ways to quickly reach that set image. And a possible route is anorexia or bulimia. Like I don't condone it, but I have to acknowledge it's there. Listen, if you think you have an ED or if you know someone who possibly could have an ED, please please please tell someone. It's important and you can't stay shut up about it. Yours or possibly someone else's life is literally at stake. If telling someone isn't an option and you can't find a way to get professional help, there are people online willing to help, websites dedicated to giving tips and helping people with EDs, and more. But you can't do it all by yourself. Eating disorders are a rough path, and I'd know because despite never having an ED, I know people who have and it's not pretty. Not pretty at all.

The last thing I want to talk about is skinny-shaming. Is it there? Yeah. Is it common? Absolutely not. Does that mean it's still bad? Well, yeah. And you can't exclude skinny girls in the body-positive movement because if you lean too far and start to make the bigger size the preferred size, skinnier girls get left behind. And it's happened before, historically, skinner girls were not ideal. Women with bigger figures and men with bigger figures were often seen as the more attractive. Why? Well when people were bigger, it meant they had plenty of food. So in short, fat means rich and skinny means poor. Of course, this is when class divisions were much more prominent. Anyways, I was talking about skinny girls and how they work into the body positive movement.

It's okay to be very proud of your body, but it's never okay to put others down to make yourself feel better. So what if you're on the 'bigger' side? That doesn't mean it's okay to put down skinner people. I hear it in the music too. Let's take Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" song. Specifically the lyric "F*ck the skinny b*tches! F*ck the skinny b*tches in the club/I wanna see all the big fat ass b*tches in the muthaf*ckin' club/F*ck you if you skinny b*tches, what" I don't even have to explain why that lyric is so wrong. Like I get it, be proud of your body but no need to give the skinny girls hell.

I overheard my friends telling me that that Meghan Trainor song, "All About That Bass," skinny-shamed girls, and admittedly, I just sort of nodded off like "Yeah yeah okay," but in my opinion, it doesn't really. I mean, yeah it's all about how she's learned to be proud of her body, and one line, "I'm bringing booty back/Go ahead and tell them skinny b*tches" but literally the next line is "No, I'm just playin'," so I think, all in all, the song is fine. And I'm not a Meghan Trainor fan, like at all, so I'm not really defending her because I love her or something.

So all in all, we really need the body positivity movement. Especially in this age, with media playing a huge role in our lives, plus EDs, and basic self-love more important (and rapidly disappearing) than ever, this movement can act as either a pick-me-up to remind everyone that it's what's on the inside that counts, or a full scale movement to get the media to be more inclusive and to grind away at the increasingly alarming ways of people who are body-dysmorphic dealing with it (or however I was trying to word that, hopefully everyone understands). 

Thanks for reading my rant this month!