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Body Image
The Body Image Revolution Revisited
Where is the body image revolution 2 years later?
Posted November 25, 2014
A lot of woman post pictures of themselves in their underwear on the Internet. Some get a lot of attention, while others get lost in cyberspace. When Stella Boonshoft posted a picture of herself in her underwear on her blog, it went viral and she found herself on The Today Show. In 2012, I wrote about Stella in my post “The Body Image Revolution.” Earlier this month, we interviewed Stella to find out more about her experience launching a body image revolution—and if she even thought that her post was revolutionary at all. To read our full interview with Stella, click here.
What made Stella’s post controversial? Was it because she was in her underwear? Probably not. Was it because her body was different from the images of women we are accustomed to seeing in the media? Maybe. Or was it because Stella was a woman who was happy, confident, and proud of her body. And that was revolutionary.
“It’s a really hard thing [body acceptance] to be involved with because people are very threatened by women who feel good about themselves. It is a difficult space to be in sometimes,” said Stella in our interview.
The attitude that women should lack confidence, that we are not good enough as we currently are, and that we should want to change ourselves using whatever means necessary-- weight-loss, make-up, hair-dos, or surgery--comes directly from industry and consumerism. Stella felt strongly about this saying, “trying to conform to a specific body type is rooted in oppression. It’s specifically designed to control our lives so we can’t focus on anything else. Therefore, we engage in capitalism and consumerism in a way that will never end, because there is a never-ending amount of problems we seem to have with our bodies.” How are we to feel confident about our bodies when we are constantly being harassed by media and industry telling us that we are less-than?
Stella’s suggestion to overcome this subversive consumerist lifestyle is not necessarily to throw our arms around ourselves in self-love and complete body-positivity while rejecting any negative thoughts we have about our body. Instead, Stella’s approach is acceptance. “The place I have come to is that my relationship with my body changes on a daily basis and that is okay. I have stopped looking at my life as a self-improvement project, and my body as a self-improvement project, and instead, just try to live my life and focus on being the happiest, healthiest person I can be.”
Stella often finds it hard to stop the constant self-critical thoughts. So when those thoughts are hard to quiet, she, instead of focusing on herself, tries to end body-judgment thoughts that she has about others. She noted, “Instead of worrying all the time about how I can like myself more, I think about others and how can I get others to feel more comfortable in their own bodies, to live their own lives. The end goal of our lives isn’t to be thin, we are not on a journey that ends with thinness, beauty, and access to these exclusive spaces that we want to be in. So when I take that off the table I have an easier time.” Stella came to the realization that, “any time I am judging someone’s body, the way that they use their body or interact with their body, I realize I’m buying into a system that wants me to be miserable and maybe dead.”
There is big business in lowering our self-confidence. The effect is universal. Stella noted that she doesn’t know anyone who doesn’t struggle with body-image issues. It affects women as well as men, fat people as well as thin, people of color, transgendered individuals, and just about everyone else. Stella emphasized how these marginalized groups are often neglected in the body acceptance movement. Adding to this whole dilemma is the fact that the body acceptance movement is largely led by white women considered to be of “average” weight. Stella noted that even the response to her blog was somewhat due to the fact that she was a privileged white woman. “The thing about it [body positivity] is that we only want to hear about body acceptance from bodies who we have already deemed acceptable. Even when I look at the response that my blog got, it’s a thing to note that I am white, I am a size 14 and I live in America, in New York, I have a lot of access and privilege. It wasn’t lost on me that people are keener to listen to things being said from people of that background unfortunately.“ Increasing the diversity of bodies seen leading organizations and praising body acceptance will encourage true acceptance. It is easy to accept an acceptable body. We need to push the limits of what is acceptable to broaden the concept of beauty within our society.
In 2013, blogger GabiFresh started the “fatkini” movement. For those of you not in the know, a “fatkini” is a bikini created in sizes 10-24. These bikinis have become an act of empowerment for women, as they are being encouraged to show their bodies and go to the beach and live life. Pictures of joyful women in “fatkinis” are circulating all over the Internet. Peggy Howell, the vice chairman and public relations director of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, feels this movement of fat women showing off their bodies via media sources such as the Internet is a great advancement in the fat acceptance movement. Howell responds to this movement saying, “…any brave stand, such as these young ladies are taking, has an impact on society. We applaud those who understand and are willing to spread the word that "We Come in All Sizes!...”
Although Stella has taken down most of the content from her blog and has left the limelight of the body acceptance movement, she hopes to continue to learn about body acceptance and make differences in any way she can. She notes, “I just want to note the angle I am going for here is less about my own life and experience and more about my belief that these beauty ideals are oppressive and harmful… I am interested in creating a climate that is accepting and open for all different kinds of bodies and all different kinds of situations.”
These are all steps towards acceptance. Not love, adoration, or hate, but simply living, sitting, being with yourself and your body from moment to moment and accepting yourself as you are. This can free you from keeping your life on hold until you lose those last few pounds, or fix your face, your hair, etc… Stella had this realization and said, “instead of just resigning to the fact that I am always going to hate the way I look, I have decided to keep living my life, regardless of how I feel about my body. It doesn’t ultimately matter how I feel about my body on a day-to-day basis because it changes all the time.” That’s beautiful Stella.
To read our full interview with Stella Boonshoft, click here.
This blog post is guest written by Kimberly Buesser, a nutrition student at New York University, and edited by Dr. Alexis Conason. It is the third installment in a series of stories and interviews with experts on the topic of Fat Shame that will appear in this blog over the next few months.
To learn more about Dr. Conason and Mindful Eating, please visit www.drconason.com
