Body Positivity Normalizing Obesity?
An Article from The Scientific journal Obesity published a piece saying that among other things the body positivity movement is leading to obesity and overweight individuals. Media saw a lot of headlines like, “Study finds the body-positive movement is probably contributing to the obesity crisis,” and “Normalisation of ‘plus-size’ risks hidden danger of obesity.” Is this necessarily the truth?
The original research
From the study Professor Muttarak (University of East Anglia, UK, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria) looked at data taken from 1997 and 2015. She looked at individuals BMI and if people reported that they felt either, the right weight, too heavy, too light, and not sure. Furthermore, they had to say if they were trying to lose weight, gain weight, or not trying to change their weight. The findings said from 1997 to 2015 more adults according to BMI were overweight or obese but felt they were “about the right weight”.
Inaccurate Conclusions
The research really just looked at individuals BMI vs how they self associated their own perception of their body and whether they were trying to lose weight. Their was no direct research regarding if the body positivity movement had an impact on obesity rates.
Additionally, Muttarak suggests that the availability of “plus-size” apparel “may have indeed contributed to the normalization of stigma associated with overweight and obesity” (p. 1125) and that, the body positivity movement can help to “lower stigmatization of larger sized bodies, it can potentially undermine the recognition of being overweight and it’s health consequences” (p.1125). Please be aware this statement is almost more of an opinion as there wasn’t actually solid evidence to make that specific conclusion.
Closing Thoughts
The specific research may not be able to draw specific conclusions. Furthermore, I still believe media has to be careful in how they promote the body positivity movement. We have seen in the past with the promotion of all the models that were to skinny it led to eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. So if we see more covers like the October issue of the cosmopolitan magazine that features Tess Holiday an overweight model. We may see more individuals who are overweight thinking that is okay and not have the incentive to lose weight. People who are overweight have a higher chance of getting a lot of health illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Down the road the body positivity movement may not have the best impact on people’s health.
Lastly looking at the results from the study a lot of overweight individuals felt they were indeed the right weight which is still a problem. I will note BMI is not always the most accurate measure for body composition and sometimes can inaccurately label individuals overweight depending on muscle and bone density.
References
Muttarak, R. (2018). Normalization of plus size and the danger of unseen overweight and obesity in England. Obesity, 26, 1125-1129.
Stewart, T. M. (2018). Why thinking we’re fat won’t help us improve our health: Finding the middle ground. Obesity, 26, 1115-1116.
