Finding Positivity In Body Neutrality

By: Martin Agency Copywriter Makeda Loney [ Illustration By Martin Technical Designer Nicole Pernell ]

Before we dive into this piece, I want to dedicate some time to celebrating everyone reading this today. Let’s make some space for all of you to celebrate yourselves.

I want you to close your eyes and wrap your arms around your body for a minute after reading this paragraph. No feelings involved, not yet at least. If wrapping your arms around your body isn’t the most comfortable for you, find a position that works. Take a couple deep breaths. Really feel your lungs filling with air. Feel the life entering your body. Your body. No one else’s, yours. You woke up today, you’re here and you are holding your very alive body. That’s a fact.

I’m a body liberation activist. I don’t use body positivity. Like most other movements, body positivity was adopted from the fat acceptance movement by smaller people as a way to reframe the conversation from the actual discrimination fat people face each day. The message to just “love yourself and nothing else matters” is messy. Loving your body is important, but for a lot of us affected by harmful effects of fatphobia—just meeting your body where it is now—means so much more to our recovery. It takes a sturdy mental mindset to not spiral into negative emotions every time you look at yourself in a mirror.

Working in advertising, a field known for its power to not only reflect but shift culture, I need to be mindful and bring myself back into my body often. Thankfully, during my career as a copywriter, I haven’t had to work on clients pushing diet ads (aka supposed lifestyle changes and improvements)—nor will I ever. This doesn’t mean I haven’t had to sit in on meetings laced with thinly veiled fatphobia, or brands afraid to show people above a certain size in ads. Many think putting fiercely real people would bind brands to perceptions of “overconsumption.”

It’s hard to think of myself positively in those moments—and every moment I’m reminded of it on TV, on social media and in everyday conversations.

Body Blues Shouldn’t Be The Norm

Discussing our bodies should come as easy as stating facts. I am a fat woman. There are no ifs, ands or buts around it. It has taken me almost the entirety of 28-year existence to come to terms with just stating that out loud because of the opinions that have been projected—not only onto me, but onto all of us within our lifetimes.

Sure, I’ve been met with the: “Don’t let other people tell you what to feel! Their opinions don’t matter. You’re not fat, you’re amazing. You’re not fat, you’re just thick. You’re not fat, you’re beautiful.”

Here’s the thing a lot of people don’t realize: These opinions are commonly held by a majority of society. These opinions are held by medical professionals, to the point where fat people are given less adequate care, if they are even listened to (like going to a doctor for almost any ailment and being told weight loss will help). These opinions are projected onto fat people by recruiters and professionals, to the point where it’s completely legal to discriminate against people for their size in the workplace in 49 states (shout out to Michigan for being the only outlier). Wrap your mind around this level of ridiculousness, a study finding that recruiters were more likely to choose a thin candidate over a fat candidate with the same exact accolades and job experience.

These opinions are ones that can’t be changed overnight. We’ve been inundated with ads about getting fit quick, and we’ve been sold diets that won’t work 95% of the time. The messages on fatness being the reason for chronic conditions are relentless, drowning out nuanced findings on exercise. Did you know weight cycling (aka yo-yo dieting) is actually more harmful for your body than just staying the size you are?

My job comes with a responsibility to showcase the world as it truly is. When I tell stories, I want fat people to be a part of the narrative, because fat people exist in the world. I try to include body diversity in every project I can. Speaking up can spark change. Speaking up led one of my past clients to include the most body diversity they’ve ever had in a global brand refresh, which was considered a first for their entire brand category.

Embrace Your Body

My fatness has shown me the mental horrors of understanding that love can be conditional from those who are meant to love you unconditionally. My fatness has demonstrated how transactional my appearance can be—where I was emptily promised things in exchange for losing weight (including the promise of a better life, finding myself in a relationship, being simply allowed to feel like I deserve something). My fatness has ultimately unearthed how cruel this world can be, including having one of the most important moments in my career be whittled down to my appearance for simply advocating for others who look like me in my industry and beyond. I don’t let this have a hold on me, though. I use this as fuel to live into how I am more than my size. I am big, but my ambitions and dreams are so much bigger. I can realize all of them without having to lose anything about me, weight included. I don’t have to find it beautiful every waking moment, but I recognize its power.

If we truly want to represent the world we live in, then body diversity and body liberation are a necessary part of our conversations about creativity. My experiences as a fat person are valid. Real talk is the foundation for not only shifting the way we marketers work—it can shift how we see ourselves, treat ourselves and speak about ourselves. If our inner circles could speak with such intention, liberated from the hold of diet culture, how freeing would that be?

You have a body. Treat it with kindness, respect—and if you can muster it—adoration. It will be pivotal to the way you move through the world.

We want to hear and see from you, too. If you’re itching to know something or have a question or comment we can start a dialogue on—email: katie.walley-wiegert@martinagency.com.