If you spend any time on social media, you’ve probably come across thousands of posts tagged #BodyPositivity. Over the past decade, the phrase has become ubiquitous, appearing in everything from diet yogurts to fast-fashion advertising campaigns.
On the surface, the message seems encouraging: Love your body, embrace your flaws and feel beautiful just the way you are. But as a weight-inclusive healthcare provider, I find myself increasingly disillusioned with the mainstream body positivity movement.
While the intention to cultivate self-love is valid (I mean, why wouldn’t it be?); the current iteration of body positivity falls far short of creating real, systemic change. It puts the onus on the individual to “feel good” in a society that may actively discriminate against them.
It’s time to shift our focus, our language, and our advocacy away from the commercialized realm of body positivity and toward a much more urgent and necessary goal: body liberation.
The limits of body positivity
To understand why we need a change, we need to look at what mainstream body positivity has become. Initially, the movement was born from the radical fat acceptance movement of the 1960sled mostly by fat, black and queer activists fighting for basic human rights, access to work and freedom from medical discrimination.
Today, this radical history has largely been co-opted. The dominant image of “body positivity” is often a conventionally attractive, thin, white, able-bodied person proudly displaying a tiny roll of stomach or patch of cellulite. While everyone deserves to make peace with their bodies, this watered-down version of the movement focuses the conversation feeling beautiful.
But what happens on the days when you don’t feel good? What happens when it feels impossible to love your body? More importantly, what good is feeling beautiful if you still are refused a job because of your sizeor if you doesn’t fit in a seat on an airplane? Body positivity tells us to change our mindset. Freeing the body tells us to change the world.
What is body release?
Body liberation is the radical notion* that every person deserves to live in their body without fear of discrimination, marginalization or oppression, regardless of whether they “love” their body or not. This is understanding Our worth is NOT tied to our physical appearanceour size, our state of health or our physical abilities.
*This concept it shouldn’tdon’t be radical, IMO.
Crucially, the release of the body is intrinsically linked to cross-section. We cannot meaningfully dismantle lipophobia without understanding how it intersects with other systems of oppression.
The hierarchy of bodies in our culture was not created in a vacuum. As scholars like Sabrina Strings have been documented, the historical roots of lipophobia are deeply intertwined with anti-Black racism and the transatlantic slave trade. The idealization of thinness was constructed, in part, to differentiate white, European bodies from black bodies.
Therefore, to support the liberation of the body means that we must also be anti-racist. It means we need to challenge ability and advocate for accessibility. It means fighting transphobia and policing gender non-conforming entities.
Intersectionality teaches us that none of us are free until we are all free. True body liberation recognizes that fighting for the most marginalized bodies uplifts everyone.
Addressing medical lipophobia in health care
Nowhere is the need for systemic body liberation more evident than in healthcare settings. I hear devastating stories almost every week from clients who have been injured in a big or small way by medical lipophobia.
Weight bias in medicine is a pervasive, systemic issue that costs lives. It’s the reality of walking into the doctor’s office with strep or a sprained ankle and being lectured about your weight before the doctor even looks at your neck or joint. It’s the stress of being weighed at every appointment, regardless of whether your weight is clinically relevant to the visit. It is the use of the outdated, racist and scientifically flawed Body Mass Index (BMI) to deny patients necessary surgeries, fertility treatments or life-saving care.
When health care providers examine an obese patient and immediately prescribe weight loss, they often delay necessary diagnoses of underlying conditions. This medical negligence leads to worse health outcomes for obese people—not because of their body size, but because of the chronic stress of weight stigma and the systematic denial of adequate, evidence-based care.
Liberating the body in health care means dismantling the paradigm of normative weight. It requires movement towards a weight that includes, Health at Every Size (HAES).where providers focus on holistic, weight-neutral health indicators and treat the real person sitting in front of them with dignity and respect.
Beauty standards as political control
In order to fully proceed with the liberation of the body, we must recognize it beauty standards and the thin ideal are not just aesthetic preferencessmall; they are mechanisms of political control and systemic exclusion.
Think about how much time, energy, mental space and money we spend trying to shrink ourselves, tone our bodies and fight the natural aging process. Diet culture — along with its kissing cousins wellness culture and anti-aging culture — is a multi-billion dollar industry that relies solely on our manufactured insecurities.
When we’re exhausted, hungry, and consumed by counting calories or tracking macros, we have less energy to devote to our communities, our passions, and our political power.
A feminist writer who I won’t name (because for the last decade, plus she was, unfortunately, a conspiracy theorist), famously wrote in the early 1990s that Diets are the most powerful political tranquilizers in women’s history. By keeping people—particularly women, women, and marginalized people—distracted from the pursuit of an impossible physical ideal, the status quo is neatly maintained.
Unattainable beauty standards ensure that only a very specific, privileged demographic holds the power while everyone else exhausts their resources trying to catch up.
The way forward
So, how do we practice body liberation in our daily lives?
It starts with disengaging from the systems that benefit our body dissatisfaction. It means:
But it also requires external action. It means:
- Setting firm limits on health care: Refuses to be weighed when not medically necessary.
- Accessibility Support: Demanding inclusive seating in public spaces and fighting weight discrimination.
These are actions that we ALL need to take, even if we have a thin layer of privilege. Remember: none of us is free until we are all free.
You don’t have to love your body every day to be worthy of respect, care and safety. You just have to be there. The transition from body positivity to body liberation is a shift from mirror to movement. Let’s stop trying to fix our bodies and start working together to fix the systems that taught us our bodies were broken to begin with.
Disclaimer: All information provided here is general in nature and provided for educational purposes only. This information should not be taken as medical or other health advice related to an individual’s specific health or medical condition. You agree that use of this information is at your own risk.
Hi, I’m Carrie Dennett, MPH, RDN, a weight that includes registered dietitian, nutritionist and body image consultant. I offer compassionate, personalized care to adolescent adults of all ages, shapes, sizes and genders who want to heal eating disorder, disordered eating or years of dietingthey cultivate an accepting, respectful relationship with their bodies and gain the freedom to live an authentic, meaningful life without obsessing over food.
Need 1-on-1 help with your nutrition, food or body image concerns? Learn how to get started. I am in network with Regence BCBS, FirstChoice Health, Providence of Oregon Health Plan and United Healthcare and can bill Blue Cross and/or Blue Shield insurance in many states. If I don’t get your insurance, I can help you claim compensation yourself. To learn more, explore our insurance and service areas page.
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