Body Positivity or Body Neutrality?

Body Positivity Vs Body Neutrality

A newer approach has been created to encourage people to love their bodies and counteract the presence of the thin ideal on social media. The body positivity and neutrality movement is meant to help media users to accept their bodies and love themselves no matter what they look like. This trend was created because of the overwhelming ideal body posts on media and the hate towards those who did not have the ideal body. The media's depiction of appearance ideals has led to major issues like body dissatisfaction and disordered eating (Rutter et al., 2023). Appearance ideals are the sociocultural expectations for appearance in society (Rutter et al., 2023). More often these appearance ideals affect women than men. They are described as ideals because the body type is unattainable for most and can lead to disordered eating symptoms. Previously, the majority of women represented in media were portrayed as thin, toned, and they have perfect proportions, and with the rise in social media, the negative consequences of body dissatisfaction increased as well. Different from traditional media such as movies and magazines, social media increased the frequency of women viewing appearance ideals in everyday life. The body positivity movement aims to decrease the prevalence of appearance-ideal photos and increase media user’s body appreciation. 

The body positivity movement was created to decrease the pressure one feels to match appearance ideals. Body-positive content inspires individuals to accept and embrace parts of their bodies that have previously been stigmatized. While in the past photoshop has been used to erase stigmatized features, the body positivity movement encourages people to celebrate features like fat rolls, cellulite, scars, acne, and larger body sizes (Rutter et al., 2023). The post will also usually be accompanied by captions that challenge appearance ideals and advocate for body acceptance. Rodgers et al. (2021) found through multiple experiments that viewing body-positive content had better effects on women’s psychological states and self-concepts than exposure to ideal posts. However, body-positive content has been found to have its flaws, for the effects are not consistent for all groups of women. Furthermore, body-positive content has been found to be less effective than body neutrality, for it emphasizes features that are traditionally perceived as wrong, and it encourages women to love themselves despite their “imperfections”. Body neutrality is different from body positivity, for it is less likely to evoke social comparisons (Rodgers et al., 2021). 

Body neutrality focuses on the internal functions and feelings of oneself, rather than one’s physical appearance. While body positivity tells people to love themselves despite their flaws, body neutrality does not suggest that any features are wrong, despite previous appearance ideals. Body neutrality is the idea that our bodies are vessels that get us through life and people should accept themselves despite their feelings about their physical appearance (Haupt, 2022). Body neutrality provokes self-compassion by reminding people to be kind to themselves and accept that all humans have flaws (Neff, 2023). It aims to decrease self-comparisons to lower levels of body dissatisfaction. Another goal of the movement is to encourage people to replace their negative body thoughts with positive body thoughts. Instead of thinking negatively about having cellulite on one’s thighs, body neutrality would suggest being thankful for having legs that allow you to walk, run, dance, etc. Body neutrality is not just a state of mind, but it is a lifestyle and a practice.

Body neutrality encourages people to take a step back from the fitspiration and thin ideal posts that are so common on the internet. Practicing body neutrality takes on a holistic approach. It suggests that you must listen to signals your body is sending you, so you can properly nourish and love yourself. For example, instead of thinking about how big your stomach is, be thankful that it digests food, and you should focus on respecting your body instead of admiring it. Research suggests that practicing both body positivity and body neutrality is a viable solution to decrease the risk of developing an eating disorder. The effects of body positivity and neutrality are significantly less detrimental to state self-compassion than viewing content promoting appearance ideals and fitspiration (Rutter et al., 2023). By increasing self-compassion through acceptance, the negative effects of self-comparisons diminish. As people are less likely to engage in disordered eating behaviors to achieve these ideals.