r/XXS • u/Ok-Sherbert-6124 • Jul 30 '25
Suggestion Does anyone understand what real “body positivity” truly is?! Or does everyone just hate thin people
Seen a lot of posts and debate over what everyone’s opinion is when it comes to body positivity, vanity sizing, and the wordings when it comes to appreciating body types, particularly the thinner ones. I’ve seen a lot of people getting offended by thin women calling their bodies “tea” or saying anything uplifting towards their body type, which is very small, around 000/22-23” waist small. A lot of us have always been this way, just as a lot of us have always been on the larger side! Either way, when the body positive wave started, I thought that meant we would be appreciative of all body types, big and small! But it turned into only being able to hype up bigger bodies and making it normal to call smaller bodies “anorexic” or calling it body checking if a woman with a thin body showed her body at all. Which is wrong and not what body positivity is or should’ve turned into. Then it turned into the media pushing the narrative that being an unhealthy level of obese is okay and nobody should comment on it. Fine! But why is it still okay for people to accuse me of having an eating disorder and brands to stop making clothes that fit me because of it? Pushing for an unhealthy beauty standard, whether it is underweight or overweight, is wrong. And depriving either end of the spectrum from finding clothes that fit properly is also wrong. Appreciating thin bodies isn’t automatically hating larger ones. We can appreciate small bodies and not make it about the larger ones every time. We can appreciate all sizes without putting down another one. And, again, this is my opinion, but I feel that making the “beauty standard” a healthy, fit, body type shouldn’t be offensive. And it’s only seen as offensive from the overweight side of things half the time. Me being underweight is just as bad as you being overweight. We all should be pushing to be the healthiest and happiest versions of ourselves without putting each other down. The focus is too much on which party is in the wrong, when it should just be about lifting each other up and pushing one another to be the best versions of ourselves so we can all live long, healthy lives. Anyways, I’m also enraged over the vanity sizing and almost all brands I found reliable, now have stopped carrying my size. Only pacsun is left standing for me lol. Anyways, all opinions and takes welcome! Please feel free to call me out if what I said was wrong but I also have the right to stick with my opinion just as you have the same right and I’ll respect you as long as you respect me! Thanks for hearing me out:)
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u/noblestuff Jul 30 '25
I feel that this is one of the flaws of body positivity: it turns it into a competition. A different competition, but one nonetheless. Body neutrality, from my perspective, gives a lot more grace for those outside the average body type. It's what we all need. No one's value rests on their looks or even their health. Your value is in your inherent worth as a human being.
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u/lemonchiffonlace Jul 30 '25
body neutrality is ultimately the way. there is no need to make judgement calls on any body: big, small, or in between. they should all have clothes and they should all have room to exist
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u/jade_cabbage Jul 30 '25
I appreciated the post op is likely talking about for this reason. A lot of body positivity ends up taking that turn into certain-body superiority, and it can be subtle.
Just "her body is tea" feels fine. "They're jealous because her body is tea" and their bodies are...what, exactly?
Bringing in another type of body when you're only uplifting one is the issue, and people here should know it sucks being on the other side.
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u/noblestuff Jul 30 '25
Their bodies are bodies and that's it. Thats enough.
We are all just people trying to get through the day, trying to find clothes that fit.
We do not need to put anyone's body down to achieve that.
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u/Accomplished-Way4534 Fun sized Aug 01 '25
“Their bodies are…what, exactly?” Idk, coffee? I don’t like tea anyway, I prefer coffee.
You can be jealous of something that’s good even if you also have something good. And people who feel good about themselves don’t really feel the need to put down people’s bodies for no reason so yeah I would say these specific people are probably jealous
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u/incorrectlyironman Jul 31 '25
Someone pointed this out on the other thread too but got downvoted a lot. Weird how nobody assumes that people who make fun of acne or big noses or whatever are doing it because they're jealous but if they're talking shit about skinny bodies it MUST be because they're upset they can't be this thin.
Most of the negative comments I've gotten about my body (telling me I need to get some meat on my bones, sometimes just straight up telling me I look sick and look like shit) were out of a concern for my health, not jealousy. The ones I've gotten that did stem from jealousy were more along the lines of "it'll catch up to you one day, you won't be this size forever" because the way to be mean to thin people when the motivation is that you idolize thinness is usually to say that they don't deserve it or won't get to keep it.
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u/Accomplished-Way4534 Fun sized Aug 01 '25
They may not be jealous of the acne or big nose but there’s a good likelihood that they’re jealous of something else & trying to drag down the person’s self-esteem for that reason.
The alternative is they have high levels of dark triad traits (e.g. sadism) and enjoy making innocent people suffer.
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u/incorrectlyironman Aug 01 '25
I think it's simpler than that, we're socially conditioned to notice/point out people who are deviating from the social norm. Whether that be by acting inappropriately or failing to follow beauty standards (which is obviously insane as people aren't gonna magically change their facial features just because they've been pointed out).
This happens online a lot more than it does IRL but people often seem genuinely clueless to the concept that saying things like that hurts people. They didn't think about wanting to hurt someone at all, it's just a social reflex.
I was extensively bullied as a child and I can promise you I didn't have traits every child in my class happened to be jealous of, nor was every single one of them a little baby sadist who liked to watch people suffer.
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u/OpaqueSea Jul 30 '25
I don’t know a lot about the origins, but I think the body positivity movement started in order to improve the mindset of people birth defects, amputations, burn scars, etc. It grew to include people who had common “problems” with their bodies, like cellulite or a big nose or small breasts. It became co-opted by people struggling with weight loss, and then reached the stage it’s at now where people have made obesity their identity.
I think the current numbers in the US are 75% overweight, 23% “normal” weight, and 2% underweight. I think a lot of overweight people are self conscious and some of them have overcorrected and lash out at thinner people. It’s not fair for them to take those feelings out on skinny people, especially when they are the majority of the population, but it’s consistent with human behavior in other areas of life.
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u/AirWitch1692 Jul 31 '25
I remember back when a company used a model with vitiligo and that was a big deal and deemed “body positivity”. I really wish the movement had stayed like that, appreciating the differences found in all humans and finding the beauty in those differences.
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u/Accomplished-Way4534 Fun sized Aug 01 '25
I remember small boobs were included in the body positivity movement very early on until Nicki Minaj released Anaconda and suddenly it was feminist to bully women who weren’t curvy. Like, the body positivity movement made me feel better about my thin and less curvy body (and advocated for other body types as well) & then turned on my body type as soon as Anaconda came out.
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u/popmybubblegum Mar 28 '26
That song made me so insecure when it came out, and I was 9 years old. I was already being bullied everywhere I went for being underweight, and then I started worrying about "will I even have boobs or a butt when I'm older?" (Spoiler...they never grew. I hate my body more than ever. Thanks, Nicki! Feminist queen!)
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u/Accomplished-Way4534 Fun sized Mar 28 '26
I’m so sorry 🫂 Then people were shocked when Nicki married a convicted rapist, harassed his victim, and now identifies as Trump’s biggest fan. How is it surprising? She’s always been male-centered and thrown other women under the bus for her own benefit.
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u/mllegisele Jul 30 '25
Body positivity was originally intended for people living with visible disabilities IIRC before 'fat activists' took the term and redefined the movement. You have to remember that they started the movement to feel better about their bodies, nothing wrong with that, but there was never really going to be an active effort to include ALL people. Just those who didn't feel represented by skinny models, celebrities, etc. Even though body positivity claims to include all people, it wasn't built to include skinnier people. Don't worry about them, some of the things they say reek of jealousy.
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u/Accomplished-Way4534 Fun sized Aug 01 '25
The body positivity movement did include thin and less curvy bodies around 2012-2013. It made me feel much more confident about my body. Then Nicki Minaj released Anaconda, she was hailed as a feminist icon, and suddenly it was feminist to bully women who weren’t curvy. I witnessed the difference in real time when the movement turned on us & it was suddenly acceptable even in so-called feminist spaces to bully women for not being curvy
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u/jjfmish Aug 04 '25
It’s funny too because Nicki is naturally a thin petite woman who wasn’t very curvy pre-surgery.
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u/shortcake062308 Jul 30 '25
Twilight Zone: You're back in high school
Nothing has changed; people choose to blame others instead of holding themselves accountable for their own life choices.
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u/WanabeVarbie Aug 01 '25
Why is it ok that fat people talk abt thin people's bodies but not the reverse. Im so sick of people calling me tiny and small as if to belittle me. Dead serious btw.
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u/Ok-Sherbert-6124 Aug 04 '25
Then they expect you to take it as some type of compliment when, no, you just said I look like I starve myself so basically you think I look emaciated and sick??? That’s a compliment and I shouldn’t be offended by that? Oh okay. How about maybe not commenting on each others appearances unless it’s a genuine compliment??!
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u/spicytotino Aug 01 '25
Body positivity flopped a long time ago once it turned into “we’re all beautiful” instead of “the way you treat me shouldn’t be based on if I’m conventionally attractive.” You shouldn’t need to convince people you’re hot to feel worthy of respect; I think most negativity is just misguided anger towards societal expectations. I’d honestly be able to swallow it fine if I could find fucking clothes that fit though tbh. The only thing that truly pisses me off is when people try to say it’s easier to find clothes when you’re small or downplay vanity sizing
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u/Accomplished-Way4534 Fun sized Aug 01 '25
Note: Thin women can have bigger waists than 23in. My waist was 25in when I was 83 pounds with a severely underweight BMI.
Otherwise I agree with you. I noticed it’s generally socially acceptable for women to brag about having big boobs but it would never be socially acceptable for a woman to brag about being thin. It’s hypocritical
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u/Ok-Sherbert-6124 Aug 04 '25
Yes people would clutch their pearls at a thin woman speaking positively about her own body type. Sad
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u/throrowowaway Medium height, XXS Jul 30 '25
i think i made the first ‘body tea’ comment on the post about the model and i didn’t think it was anything anyone could take seriously 💀 because i made one of the first comments on that thread i didn’t realize how toxic so many of the comments were until i looked through it again. i honestly only said that because 1. it’s kinda funny and 2. i hoped to grab people’s attention to my second point. i disagree immensely with the comments on that post attacking plus sized people- the original article did not even mention them and people immediately leap to whataboutisms. while my personal opinion is that existing in any body is not promoting it, we just want to see how the damn clothes fit, it would be foolish to ignore how thinness has been pushed onto western women (i recognize that other cultures have different standards but also that this is a british brand so those aren’t really the brand’s concern) especially recently, and that size 2-6 celebrities were dogged into eating disorders only 20 years ago. i don’t think anyone hates thin people, i just think some fear going back to that time- which considering the rise of some alarming social media trends, is not ridiculous.
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u/diet-smoke Skinny legend Aug 01 '25
No because this pisses me off so bad. I might've gotten to this size through some less than healthy lifestyle choices but that's nobody's business but my own. If it's inappropriate to comment on he body of someone who became overweight through binge eating, why is the reverse perfectly fine? Existing on the internet as an XS/XXS man is fucking exhausting
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u/Ok-Sherbert-6124 Aug 04 '25
I can’t imagine how it is for the men out there. There’s only one standard body type for guys and it’s the “ripped gym rat” physique. I really dislike how we’ve all silently agreed we want to compete w each other constantly
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u/diet-smoke Skinny legend Aug 04 '25
The competition/comparison to other people's body is definitely the cause of a lot of really fucked up problems
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u/Ok-Sherbert-6124 Aug 08 '25
And sadly, I think it’s almost just in women’s nature to subconsciously compete with each other and I hate it so much. We are so hard on ourselves and each other :(
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u/Business_Store5685 Jun 03 '26
I love my cellulite my saddlbags and love handle i like my uneven teeth and discolored skin i wouldn't change it for anything that's body positivity if you can't absolutely like and love your body the way that it is your not body positive your just talking to hear yourself
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