#BoPo Movement — Part II
In order to understand how digital technology has advanced the body positivity movement, I think it’s important we go back to where it started. The movement was originally called the “Fat Rights Movement” and gained popularity in the 1960’s. Obviously we know this time period to be one of activism, advocacy, and a push for change. In 1969, New Yorker Bill Fabrey was unhappy with the way society was treating his wife, who was overweight. He shared articles and information to his community and together they created the National Association to Aid Fat Americans (which is known today as the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance). On the opposite coast in California, feminists were organizing to create the Fat Underground, and advocating for Fat Liberation. These are two great examples of the grassroots community-driven organizations that come from a place of not feeling heard, seen, or valued.
Although this early movement wasn’t using the term “body positivity”, they were putting the same practices forward that the current body positive influencers are. They were gathering and sharing a collective message in protests and picketing assemblies. They were being featured on talk shows and vocalizing their point of view.
How has digital technology allowed this movement to spread?
What digital technology has done to allow this movement to progress is it has given it a platform to become more readily spreadable. Spreadability is often grass-roots pushed, as this movement originally was, but on a digital platform there is room for co-creation and expansion. Celebrity influencers (and influencers that have turned into celebrities) play a huge role in this spreadability. The content is dispersed across platforms and is diverse. Finally, sharing experiences and content is wildly encouraged in this movement, as it has that collective community feel. The movement would not exist without that authentic connection that comes from sharing.
What is the “goal” of this movement?
This movement has morphed into a massive community of everyday social media users, influencers, and celebrities coming together to share their stories and promote body positivity across the board. But is there a tangible goal within this movement? Are there milestones to reach or accomplishments that can be made? Physician, author, and clinical mental health writer, Kristen Fuller, MD, explains that it’s more of a challenge than anything else. She writes that a main goal of this movement is to “. . .challenge how our society, particularly all forms of media, presents and views the physical human body.”
How, if possible, can we measure success in this movement? Is it really making a difference?
Since the goal is more of a challenge rather than a tangible point to reach, it’s difficult to measure success in the body positive movement. However, the movement itself has started to transform from body “positive” to body “neutral”. I think this is an important sign of success and growth within the movement, because it shows that it’s really being driven by the co-creators involved rather than the media. This shift shows us that we’re getting away from those traditional labels of negative and positive, and moving to a more accepting and neutral standpoint, which I think is what this movement was about all along.
If you recall back to the beginning of the movement, lead by feminists in the 1960’s, they were advocating for Fat Liberation. This was not a movement that was attached to positivity, or acceptance, or happiness — it was attached to freedom. That fat people — or really just anyone who didn’t fit into the ideal beauty standard — could live freely without fielding degrading comments or advertisements targeting them to change is just now, in 2022, setting in to our collective knowledge as humans. I think it could be true that maybe there is no goal to obtain with this movement, it really is just about allowing everyone to exist in a state of neutrality, and exposing the ridiculous standards held up by digital media surrounding body composition.
From New York to Instagram: The history of the body positive movement. (n.d.) BBC — Bitesize. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z2w7dp3#:~:text=Body%20Positivity%20begins%20with%20the,ways%20fat%20people%20were%20treated.
Fuller, Kristen. 2021, June 11. Body Positivity vs. Body Neutrality. VeryWell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/body-positivity-vs-body-neutrality-5184565#:~:text=Body%20positivity%20is%20a%20social,views%20the%20physical%20human%20body.
