Body Neutrality vs. Body Positivity

Thomas, a middle-aged man who feels insecure about his body and appearance, is scrolling through his Instagram when he sees a post from a local fitness instructor encouraging everyone to “find appreciation for their bodies.” 

Brooklyn, a woman in her mid-20s who’s always felt shame about her body, is getting dressed for the day. After changing her outfit multiple times and countless checks in the mirror, feeling defeated and upset, she tries to recall her friend’s advice to “think positive about her body and she will eventually learn to love it.”

Body Image & Mental Health

Thomas and Brooklyn aren’t alone in struggling with their body image. Body image: the combination of the subjective thoughts, feelings, actions, and perceptions we have towards our individual bodies is a concept that impacts many of us on a daily basis. We can think of body image as a spectrum, ranging from a more “negative” body image to a more “positive” body image. Those of us who fall on the more negative side of the spectrum understand that how we view our bodies can have a profound impact on how we view ourselves, our position in society, and our overall sense of self-worth.  

Living with a negative body image can be a daily struggle. It can feel like there is a dark, ominous cloud following us around all day, leaving us feeling shame, guilt, anxiety, or disgust. The cloud can impact our decisions, how we interact with others, and ultimately how we relate to the world and show up in our lives. 

To put it simply: our body image can have a direct impact on our mental health. There is consistent research that indicates that those who report body dissatisfaction have a higher likelihood of also experiencing psychological distress, depressive symptoms, and eating disorders.¹

So, what do we do about negative body image? The Body Positivity Movement

The type of encouragement Thomas and Brooklyn received falls under the umbrella of body positivity, which is the leading social movement in body image conversations. Body positivity’s main encouragement is to embrace and love your body, flaws and all. It encourages self-acceptance and invites us to challenge societal and cultural expectations as to what a healthy or beautiful body “should” look like (typically in reference to a thin, muscular body type).

The body positivity movement emerged from a good place: to encourage body positivity for ALL bodies regardless of size, shape, color, abnormalities, or disabilities. Its leaders advocated for the inclusion of bodies that have historically been most marginalized, oppressed, and ridiculed by society. Body positivity exists in our mainstream culture but is also taught and encouraged in many mental health practices and programs to treat body image and eating disorders.

Examples of Body Positivity

• Reframing negative thoughts about your body

  • Ex: Taking the thought “I am fat” and reframing it to “I am beautiful or “I’m pretty strong”)
• Taking parts of your body/appearance you don’t like and attempting to find the positive aspects to it, possibly even gratitude 
  • Ex: If you despise the way your arms look, body positivity might invite you to come up with a reframe such as “I am thankful my arms allow me to lift heavy things”
• Looking in the mirror and listing all the things you like about your body

Critiques and potential downsides of Body Positivity 

Although the body positivity movement is well-intentioned, the way society has adopted body positivity has left many people feeling pressure to embrace and love all parts of their bodies. In reality, this is hard for many people to do. Many people feel like body positivity is asking us to make an unrealistic jump: moving from genuine disdain or disgust towards our bodies, all the way to fondness and love.

Another common critique of body positivity is that although it encourages us to love and embrace our bodies, body positivity actually over-emphasizes the importance of body appearance. This argument poses the question: Why do we HAVE to love our bodies in the first place? People’s self-worth shouldn’t be contingent on how they look and counterintuitively, body positivity can make it seem like our bodies are a crucial aspect of our sense of self. But do our bodies really need to be?

Introducing Body Neutrality: An alternative approach to improve body image

Body neutrality’s answer to that question is no, our bodies don’t need to play an important role in our sense of self. In fact, maybe a way to improve body image is to stop working so hard at trying to love our bodies and instead change our mindset to one that is more indifferent, or neutral.

Body neutrality says it’s ok to not love your body. Working towards this level of acceptance can remove unwanted pressure to change how we feel about our bodies, freeing us up to engage in other aspects of our lives that are important to us. Because, at its core, body neutrality invites us to consider that as human beings, we are beautifully complex and there is much more to us than how we look or feel about our bodies.

Examples of Body Neutrality

• Noticing and accepting negative thoughts and feelings about your body without judgment 
  • Ex: “I’m noticing I feel uncomfortable about the number on the scale. I can notice this with gentleness and move on with my day.”
  • Ex: “I really dislike my arms, and that’s fine. I know it’s easy for people to be self-critical of their appearance in today's society.”
  • Ex: “I don’t love the way my stomach sticks out, but it's okay. It’s just my body type.”
• Actively reminding yourself that you are more than what your body looks like 
  • Ex: “I am more than my physical appearance. I am also a partner, a daughter, a brother, a hard worker, a kind person. etc.”
• Spending more time engaged in value-based activities not related to your body’s appearance
  • Spending time volunteering, with friends/family, in nature, reading, or whatever activities you find fulfillment and value in
  • Reducing the amount of time focused on your body such as less checks in the mirror, less outfit changes, less time following fitness instructors online, less time working out, etc.

Summary

Both body positivity and body neutrality advocate for a greater sense of understanding of how society and cultural expectations play an influential role in how we think about our own bodies. They both point out that social media is heavily influencing our body image and that when we compare our bodies against the “idealistic” body types in society, it’s easy for many of us to feel less than. 

However, they approach the solution to negative body image in slightly different ways. Body positivity encourages us to move from negative to positive whereas body neutrality invites us to move from negative to neutral. There is a case to be made that the journey towards neutrality is more within reach and therefore, potentially more meaningful when it comes to improving our relationship with our bodies.