Body Positivity vs Body Neutrality

For the past few years, a movement called “Body Positivity” has been on the rise. It’s a social media campaign all about loving your body no matter its shape, imperfections and all; one that challenges the inevitable beauty standards of today’s society. It has been doing fairly well over the years, getting much attention from people suffering from eating disorders, disabilities, or just people who struggle with their body image in general, helping them to love and accept their bodies. Despite getting mostly positive feedback, some people find this movement to have flaws.

As stated before, the body positivity movement is all about loving and appreciating your imperfections, and believing that your body is beautiful and attractive no matter what. This has been starting to get criticized for becoming co-opted by companies, being reduced to skinny and medium-sized people only, and most importantly, still prioritizing beauty. The purpose this movement is serving is still about thinking your body is attractive even with your flaws, and this is where “Body Neutrality” comes in.

Do I have to love my imperfections and believe they’re attractive, or just accept them as they are?

The Body Neutrality movement tries to shift the focus on beauty to function, and adopts a neutral stance on beauty. Your stomach is not pretty nor ugly, it’s simply a part of your body that helps you digest food. It’s about accepting your imperfections as they are instead of trying to force yourself into toxic positivity.

“My body is an instrument, not an ornament.”

However, just like the body positivity movement, this one also comes with its flaws. Body neutrality has been critiqued for ignoring the social construct we call beauty too much and the fact that some people want to be pretty and attractive. Some say that it’s too utopic and that no one would be able to take a completely neutral stance because of the intensity of the beauty standards we have today. However it’s best to also state that opinions can be on a spectrum. You can support body neutrality and still believe that some parts of your body are beautiful, or support body positivity and not love every single part of your body.

Lastly, I’d like to add that neither are perfect beliefs or a complete solution to beating beauty standards, and so everyone is able to find their own way to cope with body image issues, with body positivity and neutrality being available options. The purpose of this writing is to give people an idea of what these movements / beliefs are, so you can be able to decide which one is best for you.