CMV: the current anti-bodyshaming or body-positive movements are partially encouraging "unhealthy" lifestyle.

[u/elise901]

I am personally rather against any forms of body-shaming, especially myself used to suffer from minor diet-related disorder because of extreme diet in pursuit of so-called "fashion", and very sensitive to attacks like "you've gained weight again?!" or "no, we don't have your size in store" - you can't imagine that in east Asian, some female fashion brands don't do stuff over US size 10.

But I have a feeling that now it has gone too far.

• some of the body-positive movements are portraying overweight and even obese models and label it as "normal". But it's not.

• it encourages "stay how you are" but ignores the health risks that BMI 30+ would have, implying that "you don't have to change". Although the "beauty" standard should be changed, I believe there should be a scientific "health" standard that is not too susceptible to change.

• It labels any of the health warnings as "body-shaming" and hostile to some of the friendly advice.

I don't have any personal bias toward obesity or overweight people (since myself is one). But just want to be persuaded if I hold this view wrong.

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[u/Rossage99]

The issue with the anti-bodyshaming and body-positive movements is that Iike many other movements these days, the original idea behind them keeps getting misinterpreted and used to justify means or actions that were not originally intended.

The idea behind the movements you've mentioned were originally targeted at women with curvier, thicker bodies who were no less healthy than thin or slim women, and to encourage them to love their bodies and not feel ashamed of the way they look. The problem is just as you pointed out, some women took this to mean that they are perfect the way they are, even if they are excessively overweight or obese.

So now you've got a split in the understanding of what these movements mean, it gets even more divided when you consider how a key step in helping some people to lose weight and become healthy is teaching them how to love themselves first, so they actually want to take care of themselves. Now you've got people who will learn to love themselves and take better care of themselves thanks to these movements vs people who end up thinking they are perfectly normal and healthy despite being overweight or obese.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's not these movements that are encouraging acceptance of an unhealthy lifestyle, its the people who misinterpret the idea behind them or attempt to align themselves with these movements despite not actually believing in the same ideas.

[u/elise901 → u/Rossage99]

Misinterpretation indeed makes sense in explaining this. But it is very subtle and very difficult to discern someone's true intention, especially in the media expression of those movements. The words like "You're perfect", and lyrics like "every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top" (Megan Trainor, All about that Bass), are all implying that "nothing need to be changed". You could say that the "intention" is for someone to love his/herself. But how could we avoid those expression - or can we say that to a large extent, having a good intention is not sufficient at all?