How Online Body Positivity Has Evolved And Why The Movement Is Now More Powerful

When body positivity comes up, what comes to mind? More often than not, it's two things: women and weight. 

Since the body positivity movement exploded on the Internet in the last three years, generating over four million uses of the #bodypositivity hashtag on social media platforms, it's gone through a several rounds of scrutiny resulting in change which, we're happy to tell you, has mostly been for the better. (The hashtag has almost nine million mentions on Instagram alone, as of this writing). 

If, in the past, the idea of body positivity was strongly associated with unattainable beauty standards and diversifying the definition of what makes a person beautiful, you'll be happy to know that it's metamorphosed into a wide-reaching idea that includes everything that has to do with, well, our bodies.

Things like body hair, skin pigmentation, asymmetry, and even medical conditions that affect body parts traditionally associated with physical beauty (like alopecia and baldness, or vitiligo and skin tones) have been factored into the body positivity movement and it's great. It took society long enough to acknowledge that body positivity goes well beyond discussions about waistlines and weighing scales!

It's a shift powered by social media that's gaining more and more traction every day, and below, we tell you more about the ways in which body positivity has transformed over time. 

Take it as a time to reflect on your social media habits, too. Ask yourself, "Are the images, videos, and content I like, share, and comment on in support of this change or can I be more discerning and conscious of my actions on the Internet?"

Beyond curves

While plus-size women were the original audience of body positivity, women on the skinner side of the spectrum have now been enjoying representation, too. Body positivity once meant embracing curves not being pressured to drop pounds to look like the beautifully proportioned women presented in the media—and it still does! But fortunately, it now also means not feeling bad about wanting to gain weight if your body is naturally thin. 

Thin girls don't worry about having to cut inches; instead, they can excessively preoccupy themselves with working out to achieve defined muscle tone, while some even consider going under knife to gain humps and bumps, albeit artificially. 

Remember: body positivity applies to all sizes. 

Born with it

This is a tough one to manage for people affected it, but they have a handful of social media personalities to thank for paving the way for them. 

There are a few medical conditions that individuals are born with, can't change, and affect body parts traditionally associated with being "beautiful." Conditions like alopecia (a condition that causes hair on to fall out, often in patches), vitiligo (a condition that causes skin to develop pale patches over time), and even more common diagnoses like psoriasis and eczema have all caused insecurities for those who have them.

They can stop them from doing seemingly ordinary things like donning hairstyles they want to try out, wearing clothes they like, enjoying posting photos of themselves on social media, and sometimes, even going at all in fear of being gawked at by the ignorant. 

These days, those doing the gawking will be scorned (and later on, hopefully educated) as body positivity has pushed for acceptance and understanding of people who might look different—but aren't any less beautiful. 

All natural

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with wanting to try out products and procedures for body enhancement. If that's your cup of tea, enjoy every sip! However, the problems arises when people feel the need to change what's "naturally them," all for the sake of attaining some made-up standard of beauty, and that without said products and procedures, they can never feel good about the skin they're in. Enjoying enhancements and obsessing over nipping and tucking are two different things. 

Often, this applies to erasing "flaws" and "imperfections" that bodies simply have. Stretch marks, hyperpigmentation, post-birth belly pouches (or even uneven boobs!), birthmarks, cellulite, you name it—there are so many things that bodies naturally have that people will describe as unattractive, a turn off, and just plain ugly. 

Thank the courageous men and women who have braved the stormy seas of the Internet to calm them and send the message of, "Natural is beautiful." It helps to know that the things our bodies go through and have aren't at all reason to feel any less worthy of feeling beautiful. 

A choice

This is probably the most contested body positivity topic of them all as it's so closely intertwined with feminism and women having the right to choose. 

Body positivity is inherently that—a choice. You can do whatever it is you want to feel as beautiful as can be, but if you can believe it, there are still beauty and body-related decisions that women get made fun of for (and get a ton of flack for) should they choose them. What are these decisions, you might ask? 

For one thing, there's choosing to keep body hair or not. Shaving, waxing, threading, laser-ing—not every gal is into these things. Some women are totally fine with leg, underarm, eyebrow, upper lip, and yes, pubic hair, and that's just the way it's going to be. No shaming necessary from those who feel differently. 

Older women who decide to go gray and forego hair dye also sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of raised eyebrows, puzzled looks, and unsolicited advice about how to maintain youthfulness. It's literally hair pigmentation—today's body positivity lets women (and men!) do as they please with it! 

And as we mentioned earlier, things like moles, birthmarks, freckles—things you're born with or your body naturally develops over time—are also up to a person, whether they wish to keep them as is, or get them cosmetically removed. If you ever encounter someone who can't look past these things and can't understand that commenting on how you would look (and feel) better without them, you know what to do. 

Men welcome

Last but not least is something that should have been obvious to us from the get go. Body positivity isn't just an issue women face, but it concerns men, too!

Men are pressured just the same to look like the celebs, fitness personalities, and models that dominate their social media feeds. If you think they don't worry about belly rolls, soft arms, skinny legs, and how to attain a sharper-than-a-razor's-edge jawline, you are sorely mistaken. 

Also, it's important to know that it's likely more difficult for men to talk about feeling comfortable with their own bodies as conversations like this are still stereotypically, and inaccurately, associated with being effeminate and un-masculine—all the more reason it is to normalize including men in the body positivity movement, because for all we know, they could need the encouragement it brings more than we realize. 

There you have it!

These are but a few, but very powerful, ways in which the body positivity movement as presented by social media trends and shifts has changed for the better over time.

With this knowledge, hopefully we call become more discerning about the kind of content we patronize online. More than that, this should also teach us a lesson or two about sensitivity; think twice about sharing a photo, link, or tagging as friend in a video that might cause them unintentional hurt or offense. 

And when it comes to yourself, know that your body is lovely just the way it is, and the person it belongs you—that's you—is one fine, beautiful human being, indeed! 

Opening images from Pexels and Unplash