Search

This study delves into the intricate interplay between menstrual practices and the use of menstrual products in India, entangled with religious and cultural beliefs categorizing menstruating bodies as "ritually impure." This study investigates the experiences of Muslim women using reusable menstrual products (RMP). The findings highlight a limited yet impactful group of Muslim women comfortable with RMP usage, indicating heightened emotional well-being and body positivity. Participants emphasized the need to raise awareness among menstruators to adopt ecofriendly alternatives. The study calls for further research to promote RMP usage, emphasizing eco-friendly and sustainable menstrual practices in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The whole person is a valued part of their dance community, and a healthy community plays an important role in the individual dancer's self-identity and social, psychological, and overall health. As a dance community, we need to do everything we can to help increase body positivity through empathetic and empowering methods that bring everyBODY together. This article focuses on practices that involve making sure all bodies are represented; encouraging social connection and a sense of community, reducing body checking, influencing positive thinking, nurturing a mind-body-spirit connection, and instilling empathy, value, and acceptance in students. These methods are likely to be trigger-free for dancers because they do not specifically target issues of trauma nor do they introduce dancers to potentially new concepts of negative self-image. Simple methods increase ease of implementation; therefore less stress is placed on the educator as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, we examine Oprah Winfrey's body as a site of cultural negotiation of body positivity, fat acceptance and the thin ideal. We analyze the intersection of race, body size, and media representation, focusing on how Oprah, as a black woman celebrity, navigates societal pressures related to body image. The rise of accessible weight loss medications ushers in a resurgence of the thin ideal, complicating the discourse around weight loss and body neutrality. Using fat studies and black feminist theories, we examine how Oprah's celebrity status is entangled with the acceptability of fat women, black women, and fat black women. By Analyzing Oprah's special "Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution," we demonstrate that Oprah's language embraces body positivity yet, the framing of the show symbolically annihilates those who are content with their large bodies. The special's focus on weight loss, coupled with the absence of positive portrayals of fat bodies, underscores a broader pattern of symbolic annihilation. Hence, we explore the converging pressures of Oprah's celebrity, desire for thinness, and attempt to represent multiple viewpoints about the weight loss "revolution." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research often suggests that online support groups validate their members’ experiences, but feminists and sociologists have argued that they may also embrace individualistic or biomedical perspectives. Interviews with women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), associated with weight gain, highlighted that reading other women’s painful experiences in a Facebook support group helped them to accept their bodies, but that the group was replete with unwanted weight loss advice. Making sense of these contradictions this article makes three contributions. First, the findings illustrate that the way in which online support groups validate their members’ experiences may be more subterfuge and contradictory than previously thought. Second, the observations contribute to feminist research on online body positivity, as the women articulated an ambiguous desire to let themselves be rather than sought to become either traditionally thin and beautiful or in a popular feminist spirit confidently big and beautiful. Following from this observation, the article draws on and contributes to feminist media studies discussions on post- and popular feminism, suggesting that the women articulated a barely articulable emerging structure of feeling of yearning to let go of self-transformation, which pervades official health advice, support groups and much feminist content online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The body positive movement—which initially set out to positively represent, humanize, and liberate fat, nonnormative, and multiply marginalized bodies—has been co-opted, commodified, and depoliticized. For the movement to have any chance of returning to its radical fat activist roots, it must shift to center intersectionality in both the forms of rhetorical labor engaged by body positive rhetors as well as the bodies on and through which body positive rhetoric gains visibility. Using popular hip-hop artist Lizzo as a timely and illustrative example, this essay suggests that intersectional visibility politics are central to the political viability and decolonial worldmaking potential of body positivity. I analyze the ways in which Lizzo’s celebrity persona engages two forms of rhetorical labor that recenter the body positive movement back onto multiply marginalized bodies like hers and envision the possibility of a fat-positive world: (1) assemblaging the big butt and the fat, Black body, and (2) resisting dominant gazing and representational practices through performances of feeling herself. In doing so, I theorize intersectional assemblaging and feeling herself as two rhetorical maneuvers of intersectional visibility that reclaim power, agency, and humanity outside of the terms offered by coloniality and the white heteropatriarchal gaze. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fat liberation movements seeking to dismantle systematic discrimination against fat bodies have been active in the U.S for over 50 years. Body positivity specifically has gained immense traction in the last decade. Recently, body positivity has been used more widely to, supposedly, individually challenge general ideologies that value thinness and fitness. Utilizing 200 posts from Instagram and 200 videos from TikTok, we examine the ways that social media frames body positivity and is an important vector for sending messages regarding ideal bodies. We find that body positivity discourse on social media is fragmented. While messages of "self-love" abound, those who are afforded self-love are those who still maintain somewhat hegemonic body standards. Additionally, we find that body positivity is also often linked to bodily changes rooted in weight loss and healthism, appropriating the original meaning of #bodypositivity particularly through the use of hashtags to influence social media algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some research has focused on menstrual sex, little work has centered the menstrual sex experiences of queer women and queer individuals assigned female at birth (AFAB) who do not identify as women. This study drew from qualitative data collected in 2019–2020 from 26 women and AFAB individuals (mean age = 30.2 years) throughout the U.S. Midwest to explore how queer women and queer AFAB individuals who do not identify as women talked about their experiences with having sex during their periods ("period sex"). Using feminist phenomenological thematic analysis, we identified six themes for how participants discussed period sex: (1) entitlement to and enjoyment about period sex; (2) period sex feels different physically; (3) efforts to minimize shame and discomfort with period sex; (4) looking for partner cues to determine feelings about period sex; (5) period sex as messy and "unsexy"; and (6) embracing vaginal sex but not cunnilingus while menstruating. Implications for understanding intrapsychic, relational, and sociocultural aspects of menstrual sex were explored, as were patterns of accommodating stigma compared to resisting stigma when reflecting on meanings of menstruation, sexuality, eroticism, queer identity, and relationships. Tensions between enacting resistance during period sex, and subscribing to heteronormative and patriarchal notions of period sex as "gross" were explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses two Finnish body positive podcasts, Jenny and the Fat Myth Busters and The Soft, zooming in on their way of discussing weight loss. Drawing on queer studies' understanding of queer time, the article discusses fat time as a nonlinear temporality, which, as a product of fat-marginalizing culture, is hurtful yet characterized by a potential to resist. The article utilizes Sara Ahmed, Rebecca Coleman, and Sienne Ngai's formulations of emotions and temporality. It utilizes the method of a situated close reading where the author's experience with weight loss works as an important resource for analysis. The article argues that fat time is characterized by "ugly feelings that stay." The endurance of feelings expands existing understandings of fatness by arguing that fat could be discussed as an affective presence beside it being viewed as a material reality. Even as the body changes, emotions such as anxiety and pessimism endure, making both the present and future fat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article situates disability within online body positivity discourses through an analysis of disabled young women's self-representation practices via the Twitter hashtag #DisabledAndCute. Body positivity seeks to challenge conventional beauty standards by incorporating previously marginalized groups, such as disabled women, into broader "economies of visibility" that includes visibility through social media hashtags. The selfie plays a vital role and is seen as a tool through which to acquire the visibility, "empowerment" and confidence required by postfeminism. Through discursive textual analysis of 133 tweets posted by young women, this article identifies the key themes and characteristics within #DisabledAndCute such as "Love your body" (LYB) discourses and body positivity; the complex relationship between feeling cute and feeling hot; and temporality and futurity. It analyzes how #DisabledAndCute upholds postfeminist LYB discourses but also exposes the limits of LYB discourses through expressions of ambivalence that offer important insights into how gender and disability intersect within body positivity discourses. This article also explores how the tweets both conform to and subvert the temporal logics of the selfie to make the disabled self legible and produce more normative self-representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In physical education (PE), learning about and with the body is central. During their physical education teacher education (PETE) program, students are presented with different understandings and practices regarding the body. However, PETE students understanding of the body are also influenced by sites beyond formal schooling. One such site is social media. There is limited knowledge regarding PETE students and their reflections on how the body is presented on social media. Inspired by activist approaches to PE, this article focuses on third-year PETE students' critical reflections about different presentations of the body on social media. The data material consists of the PETE students' visual photos, transcribed text from group conversations, and reflection logs. Working with the visual as public pedagogy of the body, our goal has been to enable the PETE students to reflect and raise critical awareness about different presentations of the body on social media and discuss how this approach can be used in PE teaching. The analysis revealed two contrasting stories about the body on social media: body pressure, and body positivity. Our research makes visible the complexities and paradoxes of social media as public pedagogy, its impact on PETE students' embodied experiences, and their reflections on how they can work with social media as future PE teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores existing feminist body positive frameworks and queer theories of embodiment while asking troubling questions about bodies between and outside of binary, cisgender frameworks. We consider how feminist psychotherapy offers some possibilities and occludes others when applied to the desire to redistribute or shrink chest tissue. Using psychoanalytic theory, we aim to uplift alternative (and, at times, uncomfortable) clinical considerations to better understand the relationship between our patients and their bodies. To guide feminist therapists, we propose a framework of mourning and materialization. Specifically, we suggest that therapists practice reflexivity and collaborate with their patients to determine what aspects of the ideal body to mourn and what aspects can be materialized through surgery or other forms of bodily change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies selfie-production as a socio-technological affective practice, bringing attention to a new and largely unstudied type of selfies, private selfies. Discussing an example of five Finnish women's experiences with a body positive #righttobeseen campaign, the article argues for selfie scholarship to move beyond analyses of representation and image-sharing on social media platforms, if it is to understand selfies' diverse role in selfie-takers' lives. The article offers an analytical schema for studying selfies as socio-technological affective practices, combining the method of interview studies with affect theory and examination of selfies' socio-technological underpinnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of the body positivity (BoPo) movement prominently use social media to promote body appreciation and normalize marginalized bodies. However, companies and social media users have increasingly commodified the movement for self-serving reasons or economic gain. Providing a unique test of the persuasion knowledge model, this experiment examined (a) how the commodification of a prosocial movement can undermine its efficacy and (b) how the symmetry between visual and text-based messaging can influence viewer reactions. Results indicated that body positive posts on Instagram that contained self-promotion or promoted products were viewed as less morally appropriate and were less effective at promoting body appreciation and inclusivity. Practical implications are discussed and a novel boundary condition for the persuasion knowledge model is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has recently been a call for the use of more diverse images by the media to promote body satisfaction. This experimental study evaluated the impact of body diversity images and whether these could act as a buffer against thin-ideal norms. Female participants (n = 106, aged 16–30 years) completed measures of body compassion, body and face satisfaction before and after random allocation to images reflecting one of three interventions: control, body diversity and thin-ideal. Attitudes towards thin-ideal images were also assessed. The results showed significant differences between groups for overall body compassion, the body compassion subtype of body kindness, body satisfaction and face satisfaction with those viewing the body diversity images reporting higher scores after exposure compared to the other two groups. Those in the body diversity group also displayed more negative attitudes towards thin-ideal images compared to controls. No between groups differences were found for body compassion subtypes relating to common humanity, motivated action and body criticism or positive attitudes to the thin-ideal images. In sum, exposure to body diversity images had a positive impact on body kindness and overall body compassion and body satisfaction providing experimental support for the use of diversity images as a buffer against thin-deals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Approximately one-third of college students are categorized as overweight/obese and elevated weight has been associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms. Less is known about protective factors in this context. This study examined associations between depressive symptoms and health behaviors, as well as body image variables among college students with overweight/obesity, while accounting for contributions of BMI and demographics. Participants: College students (N = 175; Mage = 19.87, SD = 1.93; 70% female; 58% Non-Hispanic Black) with overweight/obesity completed in-person surveys. Methods: Depressive symptoms, exercise and diet engagement, body positivity, and body dissatisfaction were assessed. Data were examined using a hierarchical linear regression. Results: Greater exercise engagement and greater body positivity were significantly associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Established links between elevated weight and depression are complex but imperative to understand, as mutable factors that contribute to this relationship may provide novel avenues for intervening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]