It’s probably one of the most difficult things to do—to look in the mirror and feeling able to truly love the person looking back at you.
With striking models like Kate Upton and Gisele Bündchen gracing every magazine cover, it’s hard not to compare yourself to these flashy stars. The way media projects attractiveness is impacting an obesity epidemic that is sweeping the country. But there are some women who fight back.
Movements towards healthy body image are taking to the social media stage, and the once silent voices of marginalized-feeling women are beginning to be heard.
From laughing at some of the best Photoshop fails, like the long-armed model on Ellen, to creating campaigns like the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, women everywhere are beginning to embrace themselves for who they are, rather than who they think they should be.
Getting to that point, however, is not always easy. And the conversation around weight loss still holds a certain stigma.
Advocating for change
Plus-size fashion blogger Natalie Craig has been a positive body image activist since moving to Chicago to attend college. Growing up in Idaho, Craig found it difficult to find people who cared about her take on fashion.
“I was a curvier girl and most of the fashion bloggers I’d known were skinnier,” she said.
Craig moved to Chicago and renamed her blog “Natalie in the City.” She said it was difficult in the beginning to be self-confident when you are overweight.
“People would say ‘you’re not curvy, you’re just fat,’” Craig said about the fashion industry: “Skinny girls are easier to design clothes for because clothes look better on skinny girls.”
Craig said curvier women were considered pretty in the past, but now the words “beautiful” and “skinny” have become synonymous.
Becoming the change she desperately wanted to see, Craig has become an advocate for the Fat Acceptance Movement, which is a social platform that started in the 1960s. It aims to change the anti-fat bias in society. Craig’s mantra in her activisim is about encouraging women to be healthy while loving the body they are in.
More than just words and images
But weight discrimination reaches outside of just fashion and social settings. The Journal of Human Resources released a study showing the relationship between how much you weigh and how much money you make.
It showed a large gap in equality in the workplace. Statistically, women who are 65 pounds heavier than average get paid nine per cent less than their thinner peers.
Aside from the social consequences of not being skinny, Craig said there are health risks associated with being overweight.
Eating disorders, heart disease, and depression are common among obese women, and many retreat directly to intense dieting and over-exercising to lose weight, which does more damage than repairs.
Health over hate
Now more than ever, there are people like Craig who advocate for acheiving healthy weight through safe practice rather than resorting to rapid weight loss.
“If you don’t enjoy the changes, you won’t sustain them,” said Yoni Freedhoff, medical director at the Bariatric Medical Institute. He said he believes there is no benefit to the kind of temporary weight loss offered by diets.
Freedhoff said women are motivated to change based on how society makes them feel about themselves. He is not surprised that the driving force behind weight loss is appearances, not health.
Attempting to mesh the two, Freedhoff aims to help his patients achieve healthy weight over “ideal weight.”
“Healthy weight is whatever weight you reach when you’re living your healthiest,” he said.
The Bariatric Medical Institute stands for what Craig and other plus-sized women are fighting for. Freedhoff said he rejects the new dieting approaches that focus on under-eating and over-exercising.
Freedhoff said he believes if people could see the struggle his clients face, there would be no stigma associated with being overweight.
The messages of the media
Weight-loss programs and diet gurus fill the media with flawless women and their miracle diets, presenting unrealistic outcomes for the average person.
Celebrities are praised for their slim figures and tabloids exploit their weight gains as breaking news, which, according to Craig, is why modern culture is overrun by an intolerance for being overweight.
A 2012 Yale study suggested the way media portrays obese women does not motivate them to get healthy, it actually does the opposite.
When overweight women feel under attack, they show increased binge eating and mental health issues. They are more susceptible to depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, as well as show increased risk for diabetes and heart disease.
The psychologist who conducted the study, Rebecca Pearl, said by shifting the media’s focus of overweight people to be positive, you could change the general population’s view.
She said she believes this would lead to people to pursue a healthier lifestyle.
The study said society doesn’t hate overweight people, but it shuns those who are “doing nothing” about it.
All you need is love
Both Craig and Freedhoff agree a key factor is missing in today’s multi-billion dollar weight loss industry—loving yourself.
New York City has decided to turn fat shaming upside down in the media with its “I’m a Girl” campaign.
The campaign, which spotlights women of all shapes and ethnicities, focuses on girls aged seven to 12. It promotes healthy eating and exercise rather than motivating through shaming, teaching young girls they are beautiful the way they are, and only need to exercise to stay healthy.
The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) tells women to love the skin they’re in. NEDA said media images that define beauty and attractiveness as skinny are contributing to the rising number of women dealing with eating disorders.
Freedhoff said the main thing is to live a healthy lifestyle, and don’t get sucked into excessive exercising and under eating.
With popular media madly pushing the “straight size” ideal, it makes it difficult for women to love the body they are in. Craig said she is pushing the envelope to teach people that it’s ok to be plus-sized, just be healthy.
“The biggest lesson was learning from the experiences of other women,” she said. “If I’m not confident, people will pick on my weakness.”
Her advice to women struggling with body image is to focus on the positives—find the things you love about yourself.
“Everyone has the power to change, to be who they want to be. Your body is lovable,” she said. “Be a role model by loving yourself.”
