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Why Body Neutrality (Rather Than Positivity) Could Help You Form a Better Relationship With Your Body

Imagine what it would be like to not think about your body at ALL

Charlie Brown
Bitchy
5 min readJan 17, 2025

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Photo by Sheila C on Unsplash

TW: Body issues

Big Truth time: I’ve always struggled with my weight.

I grew up in the 1990s and 2000s when body positivity wasn’t yet part of the zeitgeist. I was weaned on diet culture, body shaming, Slimfast and supermodels.

In my 20s and 30s, I yo-yoed 15 kilos (30 pounds) every five years or so. Yet at my slimmest I was still never thin enough to fit into that unrealistic beauty standard of not just thinness but skinniness.

As a student, writer and advocate of women’s issues, saying I struggle with my weight isn’t easy to admit, but I know I’m not alone. Too many of us were taught to hate our bodies.

Then the body positivity movement went mainstream and with it, hope for the likes of me. Could I finally love my body?

Alas, no. I was too busy self-criticising my rotund belly and double chin to figure out how to love them both.

But now, there is something else. Body neutrality.

Body neutrality is the idea that you can “exist in your body without thinking too much…

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Bitchy
Bitchy

Published in Bitchy

Thought-provoking essays on gender, identity, and culture through the feminist lens.

Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown

Written by Charlie Brown

Food, wine & culture writer. 12+ years in hospitality. Editor of Rooted, a Medium food & drink pub. thesaucemag.substack.com

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