Has body positivity gone too far

Welcome back to how to twenty-something with today being a slightly controversial topic in mainstream media and has been for quite some time and that is body positivity

I want to preface this episode with letting you know that I want you to love the skin that you’re in, take good care of yourself, and be confident in all aspects of who you are both internally and externally

I just want to bring to light the extremes that exist within our society so you can keep an eye out for it when you see your favorite social media influencer flaunting their body

Whether that body is your dream body or you’re seeing someone trying to normalize bigger bodies

Which again, all bodies are beautiful, but we’re here to talk about the truth and really the debate as to whether or not body positivity has gone too far and where you can draw the line of delusion to empowerment

And if you are someone who is listening who struggles between wanting a better body and loving the one you have right now then i want to remind you that your self confidence around your body and health is one of the many things I help my clients with when i take them through my own your life system

So if you’re curious about what working with a coach is like and the transformative experience I take you through, then I invite you to hop on a Road To Success call with me and we can talk about what’s going on in your life, what you would rather be experiencing, if I’m the coach who can help you, and a few actions you can be taking right now to improve your life

That link is always always always going to be in the show notes so please check it out and connect with me

But if you are someone who is in their twenties, is experiencing some not so pleasant physique changes as a result of being chair bound with a 9-5 and needs help developing better habits, direction as to what they need to be eating for their body, and how to develop a better relationship to their journey and balance in their life, then stop hesitating and jump on this free call with me

Now back to the topic of body positivity, I first want to highlight that we’re never going to have our high school body again so stop reflecting on how you looked ten years ago and start developing a better relationship with how you look and care for yourself right now

As a female, in particular, our bodies are constantly going through changes and I want you to think of these changes in increments where it’ll be a gradual change like one pound here or one pimple there or needing some new clothes with the changing season and then after 5 years you look at yourself and think oh my god what happened

Meaning these changes might not happen overnight but rather over time and some of them are necessary when it comes to your fertility window

Like wider hips and holding on to more fat as your body prepares for bearing a child whether you want or not

And while a lot of these changes are inevitable, meaning you can’t avoid them, there are things you can do to mitigate the aging process and that process is the equivalent to how you should be approaching your own body positivity or the way you see and relate to yourself

I know it’s hard to see pictures of yourself from a few years ago and think wow I hated the way I looked in that moment and now I would give anything to look like that again

Trust me as I was tiny tiny for all of highschool as in I was wearing kids clothes until I was 16 and then I was a triple zero, which yes that size exists

I was late to go through puberty so I was small for much longer than all of my peers and was still going through puberty when I started college so on top of alcohol and bad habits in general, my body was also shifting into being a woman with the wider hips and bigger boobs and carrying more fat on me

Which messes with your head.. Although now I can confidently say that I have a much better and healthier relationship with myself, movement, and food but it did a while to get here

And even then I still have those days where I’m like ugh I don’t like the way I look and the body positivity movement doesn’t like you to have those moments, but I am here to tell you it’s normal and it’s going to happen which I’ll get into in a moment

But body positivity, in theory, is advocating for accepting all body types regardless of age, size, shape, or ability

The way the media twists and turns it is body acceptance where your body is your body and you’re supposed to love all the changes that happen

It’s normalizing shitty habits that have compounded over time instead of taking ownership of the way you’ve been showing up and then doing something about it if you don’t like what you’re seeing

What body positivity really is is knowing that you are fully taking care of yourself and your health, you’re eating healthy with 85% whole foods, cooking most meals at home, working out (not excessively), getting good sleep, drinking water, getting sunlight and maintaining positive relationships in your life

It’s everything I talk about in the creating your health foundation episode a little while ago

Basically body positivity is having a healthy balance in all aspects of your life and actively and consistently taking care of yourself, so it’s knowing you are doing everything within your power to be your healthiest self, while also knowing your body will only go so far

Your power is the control stop in my own your life system where stop 1 is create your vision or goals, stop 2 is develop consistency in your habits, priorities, and routine, stop 3 is connecting with yourself and those who influence you the most or who you want influencing you the most, stop 4 is control so it’s looking at where you hold the power in your life which is in your actions and reactions, and stop five is having full confidence in yourself in who you are, how you’re showing up, the boundaries you’re setting, and the decisions you’re making on a regular basis

You know I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that system on here before, but that is my own your life system that is how I help my clients achieve their goals within the context of their own lives

Anywho, back on topic, it’s being realistic in your genetics, your past experiences, your stress levels and all the nitty gritty things that add up to form the beautiful body you see today

Body positivity doesn’t mean you’re never going to have a bad body image day or that you’re not allowed to dislike some part of you because that’s unrealistic

I tell people all the time, I have no idea what I look like, and I’m being dead serious when i make that statement

I tell them that if there was no such thing as mirrors or reflections or pictures and videos or clothes that weren’t stretchy I would think I looked phenomenal 

But there are these things and they all give you a different messages and feedback and it messes with your head as to what you actually look like at all times

I could take one picture and think i look so amazing and then we change lighting or camera angles and I’m like dear god do I really look like that

And the answer is no, not really, at least not entirely

And as a muscular female it is so confusing when I have pants that don’t fit me anymore but what really happened is I grew my quads and glutes and didn’t get fat but there is more of me that exists now in the form of muscle

Full disclosure, I recently had an inbody scan done which part of that scan tells you your body fat and I was exactly where I thought I was going to be.. 

What I did though was ask a few people what they thought mine was and pretty much every female I asked who is not well versed in the body fat percentage world, guessed that I was around 10%

I’m 25% body fat which is healthy for a female in her reproductive years

But it tells me how skewed everyone’s perception is on themselves and on what their goals are, as well as what they believe to be true when comparing themselves to other women

Because as a female you should absolutely never ever ever be striving to be 10% body fat unless you are about to step on a stage for a competition

Honestly you shouldn’t strive to be below 17 or 18% as that’s when you risk some serious hormonal imbalances and nutrient deficiencies

18 to 26 or 27 is considered healthy and you really just don’t want to be above 30% as that’s when you start to develop other health concerns like pcos or diabetes

But that also doesn’t mean you need to restrict yourself of certain foods or go on some drastic diet to get your body fat down.. It really means if you are above 30% body fat then you need to look at your habits and start taking better care of yourself so your body can return to its optimal level of health

And it’s knowing that even then you might genetically be predisposed to holding on to more body fat than others

Because that’s being body positive and it’s also knowing that this is a journey filled with ups and downs and good days and bad

My bad body image days come and go and I know that when I used to have a bad day I would deprive myself of some type of food or workout a little extra or say I’m going on a new diet and cutting out some food group for the week until my brain leveled out and I went right back to my normal habits

Now when I have bad body image days I remind myself that I am taking care of myself, I’m eating well, exercising regularly, and my body does everything I ask of it

Because at the end of the day our bodies are really just our transportation system and task device to get us from point a to point b or to get something done

We are so much more than what we look like on the outside

And it can be hard with pretty privilege where if you’re skinny and pretty you’re going to be treated better, people are going to be more attracted to you, and life in general comes easier to you with opportunities

Or with people you see on social media who are famous solely because they’re pretty and have a great body, or if you were the skinny kid growing up like I was, or if you have a same sex sibling and you’re looking at your sibling like we have all the same genes why do I look like this and you look like that

Because when you are larger or curvier or hold on to more fat naturally, people are going to automatically assume that you don’t take care of yourself and that you’re lazy and unhealthy

Humans are judgmental creatures and will immediately compare themselves to you to make themselves feel better while simultaneously create a story about you

I was talking with one of the trainers at my gym not too long ago and he coaches the group classes where I do 1:1 training, but was saying that there are some large women in that class who are beasts

Who eat healthy and workout regularly, yet no matter what they do they will not be as small as some of the other females in that class

Which is so frustrating, but they are on the side of body positivity that is empowering and they know that as long as they are showing up and trying their best and enjoying their life, then they are healthy and their body is their body

So while yes, originally the body positivity movement WAS created to set realistic standards of beauty that society previously deemed unattractive and it is an incredible concept that some women have approached beautifully

It’s a form of self-care and self-acceptance and a stand against unattainable standards of beauty created by the fashion and cosmetic industry primarily and at first was successful in doing so, but then it became extreme

I think we can all remember aspiring to look like a victoria secret angel even when that body type represents less than 1% of the actual population shopping at victoria secret

And then come to find out that victoria secret is run by a man living in ohio, but that didn’t help a young girls mind into thinking that is the standard of beauty and if you don’t end up looking like these women then you are ugly

And I want to get one thing straight, I am all for the body positivity movement, just not when it is poorly promoted

For example, there is one influencer in particular that would get me raging mad when I would come across her videos on tiktok, her name is remi and she is the queen of body positivity and normalizing curvier ladies

Which is great and it was at first when she was so confident in her body and would do these try on hauls and they were hilarious and realistic.. At the time I genuinely liked her and what she represented

Then she kept getting bigger and bigger because she was drinking and eating out all the time and her skin looked god awful and her mental health spiraled out of control and as someone in the health and wellness space I could see that she was starting to promote the toxic and delusional side of the body positivity movement

It’s as though she felt pressure to maintain this image even though she wasn’t actually taking care of herself

She has talked about her disordered eating with binging and restricting and mental health so I know it’s not all black and white and there is more to her than what she shares on social media so this is what we’re going with because this is what her impressionable followers are seeing as well

It wasn’t until recently, I think, I mean I don’t follow her but she comes across my feed every now and then and I’ll dive into her recent posts

So yes, I’ll admit maybe I’m judging a book by it’s cover, but this is an example that I know rings true for a lot of females going through a similar unhealthy experience and are being told to love their bodies regardless

But anyways, recently she went on a brand trip and couldn’t keep up with the other girls because she was too overweight and unhealthy and that gave her a little wake up call to start changing her act

And then she started posting about her new journey towards health which is great that she’s turning things around, but she is the prime example of taking a good thing too far

And this is what I want to help you recognize for your own self so you don’t get caught up in the delusional side

There are a lot of positives around this movement and I will say it has been successful in promoting this level of awareness that different bodies exist and no two people are going to look the same and life isn’t a one size fits all approach 

**cough cough this is why you should work with a coach because we are trained to fit a healthy lifestyle to your individual needs and take individual variance into account

But let’s fully dive into the pros and cons you can see both sides of things

I’ll start with the pros and that is the body positivity movement encourages people to have a better body image which results in overall better mental health and better habits that don’t result in restricting and binging

It celebrates the uniqueness of every individual

When I was coaching at f45 a few weeks ago, I literally made a mental note of all the different bodies I saw before me and it’s beautiful when you think about it.. It’s like art how we’re all different but all come together for this 45 minute workout and coexist in harmony with no shame, no judgment just showing up to be healthy.. It was a wonderful mental note if I do say so myself

Body positivity is also successful in raising awareness around how harmful and toxic the diet industry is, body shaming, and unrealistic standards to try to achieve when it comes to the way you look

And most importantly, it has built this community of people, primarily women, who feel represented and accepted instead of marginalized and excluded

If you’re on tiktok or something of the like and you come across a female in a bikini you will most likely see comments saying something along the lines of ‘I feel represented’ or ‘yes girl go off’ and it’s usually on a video of typically curvier woman who is enjoying herself and living life

And my sister made a good point when I was talking to her about creating this episode and that is people pick up on your energy more than they do your actual looks

So if you fully accept your body and have cultivated this wonderful and healthy relationship with yourself and you’re living your life to its fullest people are going to be drawn to your confidence and self assurance

Now the cons behind this movement is why I felt called to make this episode, and I’ve pretty much already covered most of them but it is overlooking health concerns because of it’s over acceptance of body image so it ignores the importance of health and well-being

It is so focused on love the way you look that it doesn’t consider the habits that are going on in your regular life

Meaning if you’re tired all the time, constantly uncomfortable in your clothes because they don’t fit anymore, eating out regularly especially fast foods, aren’t working out productively, if at all, have no sleep schedule or routine in general, then you should not be accepting anything and you should be getting your act together and enter the phase of your life where you are a fully functioning adult

It sounds harsh I know, but be fucking for real right now, your positivity is destroying you because you’re taking it too far

Which brings me to another con and that is the backhanded side of this movement where I find that it ends up shaming those who are feeling self-conscious or bad about their body

Because like I said a few minutes ago, you are not going to love your body all the time, you’re going to have moments of disgust or dislike for the way you look or a piece of you looks.. it’s perfectly normal

But at the end of the day you need to be taking care of yourself and doing everything that you can to put your best self forward and not come to a place of complacency or acceptance

Overall, body positivity is complex and multifaceted, but it’s important for you to understand where the media tries to pull you in and convince you of it’s more toxic traits as a ploy to get you to buy something or believe something that will in return influence your decisions and actions

Your health, feeling included and respected, and developing self love are all necessary when it comes to you living your best life

So the question remains, has body positivity gone too far? 

In my opinion, yes I think it has.. I think that no matter what, you are going to have people who are fatphobic, exclusive, and judgmental, but as long as you are waking up day in and day out taking 100% ownership for your decisions, showing up to take care of yourself to the best of your ability, and not letting haters stop you from enjoying your life, then I applaud you

Because at the end of the day, your health will determine your quality of life, energy levels, relationships, and performances in all aspects

So don’t just accept your life or your body as what it is, and start being accountable for your actions both the good and the bad ones

And work with a coach, like me, if you need that extra accountability, support, and direction so you are putting your best self forward 95% of the time

But that is what I have for you on the body positivity movement, if you liked what you heard, if I changed some perspective about this movement for you, or if you know someone who has taken things a little too far then please share this episode 

Post it on social media and tag me at coach.jessdiamond when you do, subscribe to stay up to date on the newest episode, and give me a 5 star rating while you’re at it

Otherwise this concludes another episode of how to twenty-something and I can’t wait to be in your headphones again next week with another brand new episode