Taking the Social Justice Fight to the Cloud: Social Media and Body Positivity

Abstract

Fat. The word has a negative, vitriolic meaning, but there are body positivity activists trying to reclaim the word as a descriptor rather than derogatory term. People in larger bodies are often ostracized, not allowed to fully participate in society, making this a social justice issue. Social media are becoming primary tools people use to shape and change discourse that frames fat bodies as lesser members of society or a problem to be controlled (think the “obesity epidemic”). This conceptual article details how social media platforms can be used to change the dominant narrative, pushing the scholarship beyond realizing that social media are being used for this change-related purpose. Using Sementelli’s map of the individual, I highlight some Instagram accounts promoting either the dominant weight loss narrative or a body positive one, showing how people can use their power (or reclaim it) to shape discourse related to social justice and body positivity.

Keywords:

• body positivity
• critical theory
• fat activism

Notes

1 Some might take issue with the qualifier here. Obesity calculations are often based on a measure called Body Mass Index (James, Leach, Kalamara, & Shayeghi, 2001), but as a metric it does not take factors such as age, muscle, and bone density into account, so it often produces false positives (Rothman, 2008). Moreover, structural factors such as access to healthy physical environments such as greenspace (Taylor et al., 2008) and systemic racism (Tull, 1999) are not measured in obesity calculations, thus creating a social equity problem. Harrison (2019a) delves deeply into these problems for those interested in further reading.

2 Now, society is seeing another swing as more plus-sized people are prominent in Hollywood or fashion magazines. If “thick” bodies are in, people in thin bodies might be stigmatized for not fitting in. There is a movement, then, not for body positivity buy instead body neutrality, which “aims to change the value placed on beauty in society by encouraging individuals to place less emphasis on their physical appearance altogether” (Cohen, 2020, pp. 4–5).