For Black Fat Women, Is The Body Positivity Movement Dead?

Get your obituaries in order folks, because the body positivity movement as we knew it, is dead and gone. Sure, that declaration may be a bit extreme, but there is a conversation to be had about the decline in the movement over the last few years. The current body positivity movement has been co-opted and commodified by privileged smaller bodies, who have implemented their own beauty standards and have excluded the very marginalised bodies that created it in the first place.

As someone who entered the movement back in 2012 via several online platforms such as Tumblr, LiveJournal and through several Facebook groups, the body positivity community back then provided myself and others who existed in fat bodies the safe spaces we needed to be able to build a community and share our stories and perspectives — the good and bad — about existing in a larger body. From sharing clothing store options and talking about dating as fat people, to writing think pieces on fatphobia and taking empowering photos of ourselves, the body positivity spaces were a thriving hub of predominantly fat, Black and disabled women wanting to make friends, empower ourselves and each other through healing, and more importantly, tell the world our stories and about the consequences of fatphobia on an already marginalised community.

I was a child of the 90s so I grew up with incredibly bad body image issues, on top of rampant and traumatic bullying at school that focused on my weight and skin tone. I had always been a chubby kid, which made me a prime target at school. At a very young age, I was taught to compare my body with the bodies of other girls — specifically Black girls — and to hate it. I didn’t have the ‘proper’ curves that are so often associated with Black, female bodies; the hourglass shape complete with wide hips and a round derriere. My curves centred around my tummy, arms and upper back and I had no hips to speak of, and would spend many years hating my body for not looking as ‘ethnically feminine’ as I wanted it to be. This period of self-hate continued throughout my teens, until I stumbled across the body positivity communities in my early twenties, and thus my life changed forever. 

The movement first began as a product of the Fat Rights movement in America, starting with the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), and the Fat Underground movements, respectively. By the 1980s, the movement had begun to pick up speed internationally, with the London Fat Women's Group forming and running for many years. Enter the internet in the 2000s, and the Fat Rights movements picked up speed through social media networks such as Tumblr and Instagram via hashtags such as #BodyPositivity. These movements were spearheaded by Black plus-sized women and remained relatively niche for a period, until mid-2015 when the body positivity movement began to pick up momentum worldwide, both from individuals looking for safe spaces, to brands hoping to monetize this new movement filled with the next generation of influencers, advocates and models. Commercial and designer fashion and beauty brands began to use hourglass-shaped models such as Ashley Graham, Barbie Ferreira, Candice Huffane and Denise Bidot in campaigns and commercials, which amplified the movement even more.

Where did it start to go wrong? Enter: the rise of the 'midsize' body.

The commercialization of the movement brought forward the visibility of smaller-sized curve models such as Iskra Lawrence, Ashley Graham and the like. While it was great to see models bigger than a UK size 8 (US size 4) on the catwalk, in lookbooks and online, there was a clear problem; mid-sized models were being touted as plus size. Women whose bodies featured small waists, big bums, big breasts, flat-ish tummies and high cheekbones were suddenly being prioritized by the media and brands over the marginalised bodies who had helped create the movement.  Advertisers intentionally began to water down fat acceptance to make it more palatable to mainstream audiences – leaving fat people out of its realm altogether.

This sent a clear message to the masses: it’s okay to have body diversity, as long as the curvy body you have is still seen as ‘sexy’ and feminine to society. For the vast amount of brands who shouted about body inclusivity in their body positivity campaigns, it was clear that for them, being sexy and wearing various types of clothing had a limit, and that limit was a UK size 16/18 (US 12/14).

It was at this time that I began to dissociate from the movement altogether. It honestly pissed me off to watch a movement I had become so passionate about be taken over by bodies that commanded more privilege over mine, in real time. The movement was no longer a safe space for the Black fat women who depended on it and who contributed a lot of emotional and intellectual free labour in the face of trolling and online harassment, only to be overshadowed and ignored. We were passed over for bodies who piggybacked on the labour done by those before them, and who were seen as more acceptable by society.

In 2020, I decided to release a book called Fattily Ever After, which focused on centering the perspectives and life experiences of fat Black women and women of colour in a climate where the voices of larger fat people were being drowned out and further marginalised in favour of more ‘acceptable’ curvy bodies, ie mid-sized bodies. In the book, I explain in great detail the beginnings of the current wave of the body positivity community, and why its existence is incredibly important for the most marginalised bodies among us. It was my way of reclaiming our stories and narratives. 

By this time, the reframed body positivity movement was in full swing, and would go on to centre predominantly white, mid-sized and smaller-bodied women as being ‘champions for true body diversity’. We started to see celebrities such as Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham appear in magazine lists as the go-to icons and advocates for body positivity. Mid-sized models and influencers were being used to model plus size clothing. Brands would boast about inclusive lines, only to stop at a UK size 18. Thinner bodies began to infiltrate the movement, creating entire careers based on the work of fatter people by regurgitating our words through a slimmer lens.

Let me caveat this by saying the following: EVERY body deserves representation. Having mid-sized body representation is valid and should be treated as such. However the issue here is with the co-opting of a specific movement by smaller, more privileged bodies who have not faced the same kind of aggressive systemic fatphobia that larger bodies have. I will also note here that exaggerated hourglass shapes consisting of big hips and smaller waists are considered a standard of beauty, regardless of weight. Equally, it’s also important to note that not everyone will be happy with how they look, regardless of size.

In 2020, the pandemic hit, forcing all of us to stay and work from home for the majority of the year. In this time, the midsize movement grew expeditiously, seemingly capitalising off the newfound confidence issues suffered by smaller sized people who had gained weight during the pandemic and who were now classed as having ‘mid-sized’ bodies that they did not know how to style.

While it was important for people to seek out support and resources during this time, all this did was further alienate the thoughts and perspectives of the larger plus sized people in the movement. We began to see a plethora of slim, white pretty creators suddenly gain hundreds and thousands of followers and various self-love campaigns based on doing the bare minimum – or even more annoyingly – photographing themselves bent over showing a single roll on their tummy, while plus sized models, advocates and creators struggled to find work due to not fitting the beauty standards of the body positive community. We were continuously exposed to ‘Instagram vs Reality’ posts from slim, white, able-bodied women who posed to accentuate their body’s ‘defects’, or to create a whole new ‘defect’ altogether.

On top of this, not only was there a decline of curvy bodies on display throughout Fashion Months (Glamour reported that NYFW 24 showcased 42 plus-size models in comparison with 70 plus-size models in 2023, Milan FW 24 showcased 13 plus-size models in comparison with 45 plus-size models in 2023, and LFW 24 showcasing 67 plus-size models in comparison with 85 models in 23), but the rise and accessibility of weight loss drugs Ozempic and WeGovy have contributed to the amplification in fat-shaming and flagrant fatphobia both online and on TV through the use of fatphobic character tropes, body-shaming health articles that target bigger bodies, and through TikTok sound trends, such as the ‘Big Back Song’ trend, with the original sound being seen over 30 million times.

The 'Ozempic epidemic' and its impact on Hollywood has trickled its way down to the influencer-sphere and in turn, also impacted the body positivity movement. Many former body image activists and plus-size models are using the drug or undergoing weight loss surgery to slim down, and while their choice to change their bodies is an entirely valid and individual choice for them, it has significant repercussions for the community. With so many people opting to lose weight, there are fewer voices for those within the movement to look up to. Weight loss is often a difficult and triggering subject within the community, so it’s no surprise that influencers face backlash after losing weight. Online communities provide a crucial space to validate the feelings of marginalisation and oppression that fat bodies experience daily. These safe spaces allow us to share our experiences and heal with others who understand. When individuals who have advocated for loving our bodies at any size and stressed the importance of fat bodies choose to lose weight, it can feel like a betrayal to the community.

In my opinion, people have the right to do what they want with their bodies. However, the issue often lies in the 'why'. If someone chooses to lose weight for health or fertility reasons, that's understandable. But if the motivation is purely aesthetic, stemming from internalized fatphobia, that's where the problem arises.

Here’s the thing: mainstream body positivity has always already included slim and midsized bodies. If anything, these body types are overrepresented. There have been several body positive campaigns run in recent years where the majority of bodies included are slim and midsized, including several campaigns created by plus-size fashion brand, Simply Be, who tend to feature mostly mid-sized models. At this point, the onus is on the brands and media outlets who are still beholden to uplifting certain body types, to provide visibility to those who live in the most oppressed bodies. It’s their job to uplift and promote the most marginalised. It’s their job to create clothing for ALL bodies to wear and feel confident in. 

At the end of the day, when smaller-bodied people within the movement say “let’s have more conversations on our bodies please, ALL bodies matter!” they’re reasserting that their bodies are deserving of more attention than the marginalised bodies. They’re asking a group of marginalised people who have put a lot of emotional labour into a movement to focus on them more because they want to benefit from it, too. Using celebrities and the way in which they are treated by the media for example. Lizzo and Gabourey Sidibe — both visibly fat, Black women — on the whole get treated negatively by the press and online over their weight despite being positive influencers and figures of representation within the media. White celebrities such as Rebel Wilson or Melissa McCarthy however (who are only marginally smaller in size), are often seen more positively; with the press mostly focusing on their talent as opposed to their weight.  Out of these four women, only two names are often used interchangeably as insults when people online decide to be fatphobic against other fat women online.

Nicola Coughlan is another example of the ways in which smaller-mid sized bodies are often perceived in contrast to larger fat bodies. Although Coughlan is not plus-sized, she has been perceived as plus-sized in the media due to not being a traditional ‘sample size’ and because of her round face, causing discourse surrounding her suitability of being the love-interest in the latest season of Bridgerton due to her weight. The fatphobic framing of her desirability as a chubby person received backlash (and rightly so) from a plethora of different publications and body image activists around the world — however, the same could not be said for Gabourey Sidibe in season one of Empire (2015) where she played an intern named Becky who not only had a love interest who conformed to the Western standards of beauty, but also had a sex scene within the show which — for the most part —  seemed to be received poorly by fans who went on to post fatphobic comments and insults for days afterwards. Unlike Coughlan, who received an outpouring of defence essays and think pieces on the importance of seeing ‘normal’ bodies on TV, it felt as if Sidibe barely received any praise or defensive discourse on her behalf from the movement. If Sidibe happened to be a white and mid-sized actress, would she have received the Coughlan treatment? Based on the above, the answer is yes. 

Body positivity can be for everyone. But when smaller-bodied people centre themselves in a movement not created for them, they are using their social capital of thinness to reaffirm oppression. To a lesser degree, this can also apply to mid-sized people, seeing as mid-sized bodies are also considered an accepted standard of mainstream beauty. These people are co-opting a movement that was created by and for fat people. And by doing this, they are taking away resources from marginalised people, whilst reasserting themselves as the most powerful.

As smaller-bodied people, their privileges allow their voice to be heard much louder than the multitude of fat people who came before them. And when they use the platform that they’ve been allotted to speak only for the feelings of other smaller-bodied people, they ignore the experiences of fat people, thus contributing to the oppression they face.

If it’s being fat that we hate so much as a society, then it’s fat bodies that need the most attention in movements working to fix that. Beauty does not end at a UK size 16 (US 12), and it’s time the body positive community – as well as brands and the media – realised this.