Ableism In The Body Positivity Movement And Why You Should Avoid Doing And Spreading It.

Ableism in the Body Positivity Movement and why you should avoid doing and spreading it.

I want to start this off by saying that i am all for body positivity, it’s personally helped me when ive been in non-ableist spaces. This post is not  trying to say that it’s a bad thing overall. The idea and message is good, but the execution doesn’t always live up to that.

Ableism is surprisingly prominent in the movement, despite the name. It shows up in different yet very similar ways. 

The biggest thing is the focus on health. I constantly see people saying being fat is okay because you can be healthy and fat at the same time. This is true of course, you can be both. but why does health matter? Why does health determine respect. Why does health determine whether or not you’re valid?

I am not healthy. I never will be healthy. I am automatically unhealthy due to my disability. Putting focus on health creates two categories of valid and invalid. And the people who make up the majority of the invalid box are disabled.

Not to mention that some fat people are completely abled and still unhealthy. And those people are completely deserving of the same respect anyone else gets.

Another thing is food. People are constantly talking about how they eat the healthiest things and are still fat. Which is valid. But not universal. A lot of disabled people have to limit what they can eat due to their disability. A lot of disabled people have no choice but to eat “unhealthy”* food. This can be due to allergies, disabilities affecting the stomach or digestive system, and how much energy something takes to prepare. people who eat “unhealthy” things are valid and deserving of respect.

People put a bug focus on exercise and/or physical abilities. They talk about how a lot of fat people do actually exercise and stay fat, which is true and valid. But why should people have to exercise to prove that they’re actually valid and deserve respect. And they talk about how fat people can still do things that require a lot of energy and effort (the main things i see are long runs/marathons and yoga).

A lot of disabled people are physically incapable of exercise. And even if they can physically do it, it can be extremely dangerous. Same with a lot of different types of physical activities. This doesn’t make them less deserving of respect or make them suddenly invalid. All it does is show that different people have different levels of physical abilities.

Now, I’ve talked about why it’s ableist to do these things. By why is it important to avoid these things outside of that?

(tw for eating disorders in this next part)

I have an eating disorder. I wont go into specifics, but it’s a restriction based disorder. The ableism in the body positivity movement directly fed into it and made it worse. If you are constantly seeing things that either directly say or imply that your body is not valid, even in the eyes of people who seek acceptance for all bodies, you are going to thing that it does not matter what you do. I thought, and still do to be honest, that since I’m not even valid by the Body Positivity Movement’s standards, it doesn’t matter what I do to myself and i might as well try and be valid by societies damaging standards because that’s better than not being valid at all.

The ableism in the movement is making it counterproductive. And it’s dangerous.

*in quotations because i personally do not think food is healthy or unhealthy. too much water is unhealthy and can kill you.