What is the difference between body positive and fat positive?
What’s the difference between body positivity and fat positivity? How about body liberation or Health at Every Size (also called HAES)?
Here’s a quick look at the terms and definitions I use in my body liberation work.
Transcript
As body positivity becomes more mainstream I’m often getting questions about, well, what’s the difference between being body positive and being fat positive? Can I be fat positive or body positive if I’m in a thin body? Like, how is body liberation different? How is fat liberation different from that?
So I thought I would run through a few definitions that I use in my work. These are, some of these are quotes and I’m going to link those in the post so that you can see them. So that they get the proper attribution. Some of these are my interpretation. But these are the frameworks that I’m using in my own work.
And so when I say these words, here’s what I mean by them. So body liberation, to start with, I’m going to do these alphabetically because that’s the way I have them in my notes. So body liberation is the freedom from social and political systems of oppression that designates certain bodies as more worthy, healthy, and desirable than others.
Body Positivity which came from the Fat Acceptance Movement, which stemmed from the Civil Rights Movement is the concept that all bodies have worth as they exist today. So that is a, it is a certain subset of the Fat Acceptance Movement. Which is the concept that fat bodies are just as worthy as thin bodies, and should be accepted as a natural part of human variation.
Which is very similar to fat positivity, but fat positivity goes one step further. And fat positivity is the concept that fat bodies are not just worthy, but have a beauty and value of their own. So, so all of these things are a little bit different. So a couple of other definitions that I use in my work.
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Our health at every size, which is the concept that everybody can work towards its own version of health at its current size. And health looks different for everybody. It is a very individual concept. Some people will never be what we consider healthy by mainstream standards. Either because of lack of access or chronic illness.
So health may look different for every single person. And that’s fine but, but Health at Every Size is the concept, or H. A. C. E., is the concept that any human being can work towards what health means for, means for them, personally. Related to that is the concept of intuitive eating which is just listening to your body and eating in accordance with what your body wants.
Let’s see, let’s, let’s talk about privilege. I talk about thin privilege a lot in my work, which is one of many privileges that you may, may or may not possess, or may possess in certain amounts. Privileges are spectrums. So I have I have less thin privilege than someone who is half my size, but I have more thin privilege than someone who is larger than I am because I have more access to the world.
But privilege in itself is a set of unearned benefits given to people who fit into a specific social group. So when I talk about thin privilege, I’m talking about the varying amounts of privilege that you hold for belonging to the group of people who have thin bodies. Marginalization is pushing a particular group or groups of people to the edge of society by not allowing them an active voice, identity, or place in it.
And intersectionality is really entwined with this, pun not intended, is really intertwined with those previous two definitions, because intersectionality is where those privileges and systems of oppression overlap. So I am a very fat person, so I lack a lot of privilege there, but I am also a white woman, and so that I have a lot of privilege.
in the color of my skin and my ethnicity. So, so intersectionality is where all these things mesh together. Let’s see. Mindful eating. Mindful eating is, it’s related to intuitive eating. It’s not exactly the same. It’s eating with the intention of feeling better when you’re finished eating than you did when you started.
And eating with the attention necessary for noticing and enjoying your food and its effects on your body. Weight stigma, which I talk about a lot, again, along with thin privilege. It’s also known as weight bias, fat phobia, fat hatred, fat mesia, weight based discrimination. These are all terms for the same concept, which is discriminating or stereotyping based on a person’s weight.
It’s a leading risk factor for eating disorders. It deprives fat people of health care. And it idolizes thinness. Oh, let’s see. The final one is the social determinants of health. And if you’re not familiar with this, this concept is really important. Because it affects how we live and work and our health in ways that are really fundamental.
So the social determinants of health are defined as the conditions and the places that we live Where people live, learn, work, and play that affect a wide range of health and quality of life risks and outcomes. And the, the one that’s the most relevant to me is that your body weight and your body size are heavily defect heavily affected by the social determinants of health.
Which are, include many, many more factors than just what you eat. It’s your genetics. It’s where you live. It’s your, it’s your skin color. It’s your socioeconomic class. It’s your social support network. It’s your job. It’s your level of environmental pollution around you. It’s, it’s many, many different things that affect weight in addition to just what you eat.
Hi there! I'm Lindley. I create artwork that celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards at Body Liberation Photography. I'm also the creator of Body Liberation Stock and the Body Love Shop, a curated central resource for body-friendly artwork and products. Find all my work here at bodyliberationphotos.com.
