ESPERANTO
Skinny Privilege: A Talk About Body Neutrality So, you’re in a room with fluorescent lights and inspirational posters lining the walls. You and fifteen other girls sit on fold-out chairs in a circle. Alcoholics Anonymous? Wrong, it’s ninth grade Health and Human Development, and you’re here to talk about body image. A collective experience for many young women, we were told it was a safe space to discuss any lumps and bumps from which insecurity stemmed. “It’s okay to feel insecure about your appearance,” our teacher told us. “You’re beautiful and valuable no matter what.” As much as I supported this message, it was seemingly irrelevant to me at the time. I hadn’t really thought much about how my body looked, and I didn’t realise that something mostly determined by genetics would be talked about so often in my adult life.
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For context, I’m built like a mid-cut carrot stick. In making my internet avatars, I always stuck to the default body type. Only recently have I realised that fitting into society’s stock-standard skinny body puts me in a position of privilege. In this class, the teacher introduced the basics of body positivity — that you could feel empowered and accepted no matter your appearance or shape of your body — the same message has been pumped out on social media and advertising, largely targeting women. Body positivity originates from the fat acceptance movement of the 1960s, which sought to battle systemic discrimination against bigger bodies. However, the rise of body positivity in mainstream culture has turned to exclude those it first sought to embrace. As more fitfluencers and beauty brands hashtag #bodypositivity, the focus has shifted back to privileged bodies who do not have to fight to be accepted within society — those that are abled, thin and white. Ironically, a space that was designed for marginalised bodies no longer holds them in the spotlight.
