Women in society today, look at their bodies in many negative ways. Young girls and women alike all around the world look in their mirror and think “I am too small, too fat or too curvy. Urban Dictionary explains body positivity as accepting your body as it is and the importance to feel comfortable in their own skin as well. Body positivity is a good way to boost confidence and accept oneself for who they are. Even though body positivity exists, still too many women think about their bodies in so many negative ways. These thoughts lead to harmful behaviors; such as, eating disorders.
One being bulimia, affecting girls as young as six years old. Bulimia is an effort to avoid weight gain, some will make themselves vomit or purge. Purging means forcing oneself to vomit. Another method used is ridding their bodies of calories. This may include abusing laxatives, diuretics, or enemas after eating. Also, women may fast or go on a strict diet or even do excessive exercise so they do not gain weight. Women do these negative things to make themselves feel better about the way they look. Anorexia is not only a form of body negativity but also can be a debilitating emotional disorder, making their obsession to lose weight completely rule their lives. Some women who suffer from anorexia believe they are overweight, even if the scale shows ninety pounds. Woman that is obsessive and in desire to lose weight. Many women that deal with anorexia are normally a very small underweight person that thinks they are too fat or curvy. Body positivity has formed movements, campaigns, and support groups to help women conquer themselves in positive ways.
Whitney Thore is one of the people that formed a campaign called No Body Shame. Whitney Thore is a small- town girl from Greensboro, North Carolina that learned to embrace her body even while weighing 380 pounds. She was discovered after posting “A Fat Girl Dancing,” the same day her video went viral, getting seven thousand likes. It was because of that video she was asked to appear on the Today Show and ABC News to talk about why her video went viral. Thore explained that she was trying to promote body acceptance. After appearing on television, TLC picked her up and introduced Whitney’s new show called “My Big Fat Fabulous Life” aired the first season on January 13, 2015. The first season was such a big hit it, while it showed Whitney explaining that she had not been to the beach in over fourteen years nor bought a bathing suit. So, one episode is all about Whitney buying a bathing suit for a big girl and going to the beach and showing that she is confident, positive, and will not let nothing stop her. Whitney’s No Body Shame Campaign motto is, “Love yourself, Live fully. No excuse. No Shame.” The campaign works to fight the effects on Body Shame and promotes self-love and acceptance to have good body positivity. She promotes to help someone as an individual overcome the effect of people have shamed them or labeled them. She believes that if you can accept ourselves it will not have the same effect if we don’t accept ourselves. This is a very good example of body positivity. Body positivity has all different kinds of ways to help people such as professional trainings. These health professionals help people work with the struggle with their body image and eating problems due to body negativity. So by helping people become more positive about their body they have ways of training yourself to become more positive. In the training people, will receive systematic instructions to create a prevention and conducting Be Body Positive groups.
The curriculum that the trainers give will include handouts and suggestive activism projects to learn how you can use the knowledge to be a body positive model to help other women stay confident about body positivity. The purpose of training in learning how to form a good and positive relationship with your own body. This kind of training can be found online course or in the surrounding areas in which may live in. The suggestive people they encourage to take this class are team workers that deal with individuals with eating disorders, social workers, counselors, dietitians, nurses, psychiatrist, and psychologists. Also with professional training they also have public workshops to help women come in on their own to learn more about body positivity. These workshops will help women learn simple and effective ways to work with yourself where no one is judged or a place where there is shaming yourself.
The tools that help women in these workshops help gain confidence on body positivity with being kind to yourself as you are to others. It’s a good way for women together and speak to other woman that are going through body negativity and help them put that aside and understand how to become positive about their body. There are workshops online as well to help women that do not want to meet in person they would rather chat with someone over the computer, in that way a women might not feel judged or a shame. Body positivity in these workshops have helped a lot woman understand how to feel positive about their bodies. In one of my experiences in my life I have been shown by my dad that has become a leader of a group called Over Eaters Anonymous. My dad went through a very harsh divorce and turned to food as his way out of everything because he wasn’t happy with the way his body appeared to him. He joined the group and started as regular person. He got to know that he wasn’t the only person that was ashamed of their body. This group that he had joined was about promoting and helping other people become positive about their body. My dad went to group meetings and learned how to help himself overcome body negativity and help become positive about his body. The meetings lasted for about two hours and met two days a week.
There was homework assigned throughout the years that was to get a group members phone number and that way you could help each other outside the group achieve body positivity. My dad became a positive person about his body while going through a hash divorce that group really helped him. He is now a leader of his own Overeaters Anonymous group to help people be positive about their bodies. Although his group has only ten members, he has still enjoyed being able to help everyone in this kind of body positivity group. Body positivity has come up with people on the internet that help women by sharing their story with Blogs. I found a blog for plus size women that has to be positive about their bodies. The blogs name is positive bloggers to turn to when you are feeling crummy about your body. These are thirteen plus size women that blog about how they may be feeling that day and want to inspire other women to make them feel good about how important body positivity really is to a woman. It shows that these woman are not afraid to show how plus size they truly are because they have body positivity and are willing to help other woman out there. Body Positivity is accepting and loving your body on the inside and outside of it for yourself.
That no matter what color you are as a woman or a girl doesn’t matter what you look like be positive about your body is a big key to a healthy life. Nobody can live a positive life if said person is not confident. So when you make wake up in the morning and start your day ever thought of praising your body and say I love my body or I accept my body today is going to be a great day and then you should help you start your day off in a body positive way. You should never shame yourself to start your day you won’t have a good day if you put yourself down. It is very healthy to talk about the way you feel about your body and get positive feedback from family and love ones. To boost body positivity could just be going to the gym to make yourself feel better about your body and then have a good day from there. . Making yourself feel bad about your body is only going to eat you away so people turn to body positivity to help them make themselves feel better Learning a lot about how important it is to be positive about your body can be very helpful. There are women out there that can be negative about their body and how harsh in can be due to women turning to eating disorders instead of know the help that they can receive. The internet has a lot of different ways to show someone how to help someone be positive about their own bodies. Workshops and support groups and even campaigns have a huge impact on women today. A large woman helping girls know it is okay to have body positivity on a television show and not to be ashamed of themselves. Walking with and talking with women today can show a person if they have body positivity or not. If they may not have body positivity there are ways to show people how to get help. Being positive about your body also can give you a good outlook on life. If you’re a happy with the way things are then you tend to make the people around you be very positive and not even know it. So be happy with your body and make sure you stay positive about your body.
