Thread by @ScarredNtScared

Whenever I talk about body positivity, I get someone trying to derail the convo by going “WHAT ABOUT HEALTH?” so here we go... the most frequently asked questions about health in body positivity

THREAD

“What’s wrong with losing weight?”

There is nothing wrong w/ losing weight. What is wrong is making weight loss the focus. Making weight loss the focus creates a pass/fail mentality.

If you work out 3 times a week + your focus is weight loss, and you don’t lose weight, that’s considered a failure. If your focus is health, then you’ve already passed by going.

“But what about diets?”
The fact that you are making weight loss + dieting synonymous is factually incorrect. 95% of diets fail so if anything diets are synonymous with weight gain.

But I’m looking after my health?”
Dieting is not good for your health. It makes you override your hunger signals. Whilst on swimming world, I was directly told to stop exercising because it was making me gain muscle weight.

The products they endorse are companies that pay them like slim shot and fake cheese. The entire company is run with money as the focus, not your health.

There is so much food guilt in the meetings using words like “syns” - I don’t care that the long word is synergy. That’s an excuse and no one says synergy in the meetings. Your unconscious mind is interpreting it as a sin. The whole principle encourages competition + comparison

“People can just love health and fitness!”
I addressed the health side but let’s talk about fitness. Body positivity isn’t against moving your body, it is against the body shaming as motivation for exercise. It is against equating movement to calories burnt.

Body positivity is anti fitspo because it motivates people to move their body by using comparison and increasing your self hate. Body positivity is all for moving your body but is against the idea that you must do it for the results

“I need to lose weight to get healthy”
Weight loss is not synonymous to health. Losing weight won’t make you healthy if you are depriving yourself + doing it via a diet because majority of people gain the weight back in a 2 year period.

That’s because the programme isn’t designed for health or long term weight loss. I would address your assumption that fat = unhealthy by reading the book “Health At Every Size”

“But I want to get more confident”
There is no correlation between body size and body confidence. You can be fat and confident and you can be skinny and insecure. Losing weight won’t make you confident, working on your confidence will.

“People should be able to do what they want with their body”
NO ONE is stopping you/judging you for being on a diet. You can’t blame an individual for falling prey to an industry that is designed to profit off your insecurities. You are not the problem, the company/industry are

So to be clear:
- Body positive isn’t against health. - - Make as many health based decisions as you like.
- Body positivity is against corporations teaching you to override your hunger signals because they know better than your body does.

- Body positivity is against the diet industry.
- Diet industry does not mean health. - Diet industry does not mean weight loss.
- If you want to make healthy choices, make them but if you make weight loss the goal, that’s an aesthetic choice, not a health one.