To think ‘big body positivity’ is a thing of the past now?

[Cheeseandpicklecob]

I’ll start off by saying I’m a big girl - currently in a calorie deficit.

I have noticed a trend, particularly since weight loss jabs became a ‘thing’ that not as many people are on about big being beautiful and body positivity anymore.

Lots of current and previously big people, such as myself, are now desperate to lose weight with the jab or on a calorie deficit journey (or both).

I just guess I find it interesting, now that it’s a real possibility for the obese and overweight community, the ‘body positivity at any size’ is heading out of the window.

I'm 63 and just lost all of my excess weight of 5 stone on monjouro after 30 years. I feel and look fantastic, I can wear whatever I want, just sling on jeans and a teashirt and go out instead of hiding under hot layers, my joints have improved 100%, my blood sugar is normal. I did not enjoy being fat one bit, it was a prison and I put myself at huge risk of medical problems. Nobody wants to be fat. I hated every day of it.

The whole point of body positivity wasn’t ever ‘yay fat is great’ it was ‘I don’t have to be thin to live happily in the body I have’ , thinness does not = worth. There is no conflict in finding a way to lose weight and still be body positive because it wasn’t ever about weight to Begin with.

I didn't live happily in the body I had though, not for one single day. It prevented me from doing everything I wanted to do.

But you can't live happily in an obese body.
Carrying stones of extra weight on your body makes you feel tired, worn out, unwell and it restricts what you want to do.
It's a horrible feeling which stops you from being able to be happy with yourself.
Every overweight person I see profesionally or know personally is longing to lose their excess weight, for health and wellbeing reasons.

Haven't noticed this. The body positivity community is an online echo chamber and the deaths and declining health of some of the main influencers has not discouraged the rest IMO.

Heroin chic is most definitely coming back, I have a friend in the modelling industry who says it’s rife amongst young women

Models have always been super skinny. That never went away!

She meant ordinary young women her age (early 20s) not models

I've got to say though I don't like looking at the clothes models online at Marks and Spencers they look positively ill and painfully thin. I look nothing like them and just cannot see the clothes on my body. They are always in odd positions so you can't see the clothes properly or how long the tops are.
If you go over to Cotton Traders the models, although slim look much more like normal women and they show the clothes off properly.

I don't think it ever was 'a thing' in the mainstream to be perfectly honest. If it resonates with you, you probably had a distorted view of its influence, as you'd pay attention, and get targeted for content about it. Same thing now with the jabs. Wherever your own focus lies you tend to think its the thing. BP in general seems to still be here in msinstream media though. Adverts aimed at women in particular continue to show a range of body types.

I don’t see this heroin chic look coming back on my socials. It’s all about strength and wellbeing That’s what I also see in real life. Lots of friends and colleagues lifting weights and prioritising healthy clean eating.

I honestly think most obese people would be thinner in a heartbeat if they could, before the weight loss jabs they found it impossible to be thin so they decided to just stay fat and make the best of it. Time will tell over the next 5 years how many people that could take weight loss jabs don’t and choose to stay fat. For reference I’m an obese person who is on a weight loss jab and it’s life changing I’m so thankful I can just about afford it.

Even with that to try and capture the spending power of women who had historically been excluded from most brand marketing, there have always been hordes of people perfectly happy to rip them apart and remind them how awful/repulsive/disgusting/etc they were - as is shown in some posts on this thread.

I reckon that it's going to be worse for them now because there will be the 'why won't they just get the injections now?'. And yes, the fashion trends are turning back to the extremely low BMI look, so you'll have more normal weight girls and women feeling awful because they aren't skinny/thin, back to the 'you don't want to build bulk'. Trends in weightloss methods to include prolonged fasting (ie, not eating) are also a risk factor and, combined with the fashionable body shape changing, it is something to be very concerned about, as girls and women who would have been happy with their shape to be one with a proportionally larger lower body will now be back in the 'your backside looks huge and fat, go on fasts, get weight loss injections, don't exercise or you'll be too big' era that has always sought to minimise a typical female shape.

I always thought it was awful. All these morbidly obese people, with bellies hanging down to their knees, being told how gorgeous and sexy they are. Sorry but it’s just unhealthy, not gorgeous and sexy. Heaven forbid that anyone should try and tell them
otherwise 🤷‍♀️ I’m sure most of them are lovely people but they’re deluded fools and would be better off with losing the weight.

I think it was always obvious that any of these people would take up the opportunity to lose weight if given the chance. Trouble is like anything is became too extreme. Wanting people to be treated with respect and to feel happy and confident in their bodies no matter their size is a good thing; but the media, social media etc pushed it too far into trying to get people to pretend that you could be severely obese and still healthy and that its all shallow rather than tied to health which is a lie. It's a shame because the original message was great.

Body positivity was making the best of a bad situation. wLI have provided a fix for many that was previously unavailable which makes the body positivity less needed or less obvious because it’s done to be positive about being skinny.

No. Body positivity, or neutrality, and living in a larger, or marginalised, body is still very much a reality for many people.

There’s always a new diet, medicine , operation, intervention of some sort that people think will be the end of fat people. Everyone thought that diet pills would work for all. It didn’t. Injections won’t either.

Sadly it does mean that clothing lines will be reduced in shops, at least until the rebound of people putting the weight back on hits I suppose.

Fat and happy is not the worst thing you can be. It is much more dangerous to your health to have a very restricted diet, and it’s more dangerous to be under weight than moderately over weight, but we happily prescribe eating disorder behaviour to large people under the guise of healthcare.

This is much, much more dangerous for women and girls than a bit of fat 😢

I think there will be a shift on a macro level however I own fitness studios with a specific anti-diet policy, and we won't be changing that stance, so on a local level, hopefully not. It's really important to me that all bodies feel welcome at my place. We move for joy and strong bones and longevity and to connect with the people around us, not to look a certain way, and that won't change.

But not carrying too much extra weight will definitely give you more longevity in the long run

If ‘body positivity’ means largely promoting obesity, it can only be a good thing if its popularity is waning.

Give it time and I really think you will.

YANBU OP, I was only saying this to someone the other day.

Yeah weight loss jabs have well and truly caused the death of body positivity.

Honestly I would do it if I could afford it.

But I also think MN is not the place to discuss body positivity anyway tbh

body positivity is not about thinking being fat is good or not wanting to lose weight.

it was about accepting the body you were in and how self-hate and being unkind to yourself doesn't help you to lose weight. and that there is not a moral failure in being overweight.

as you see on a lot of the jab boards many women found it basically impossible to over come the food noise and any of the insanely restrictive diets they tried that worked were unsustainable.

Jabs work and are helping a lot of people thats great. but i hope we don't lose body positivity as i don't think anyone should hate the body they are in.