PARIS — Social media, we know by now, is a false mirror of reality: the grass is always greener, everyone else is prettier, richer, thinner. That final illusion is a particularly noxious element in society, creating both physical and emotional trauma for a mostly younger and female demographic.
Fortunately, on those same social media platforms, the Body Positivity Movement has emerged over the past decade. Tracing its roots all the way back to the 1960s activism and the so-called "fat acceptance movement," body positivity challenges societal standards of appearance, promoting acceptance of all body shapes, sizes, genders, and skin tones.
It's in direct contrast with the social media standards, where a skinny body gains millions of likes and tons of appreciation texts while a normal body receives whispered "you're so brave" comments.
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Instead, the Body Positivity Movement is loud and proud, and gaining more and more attention thanks to a growing array of "influencers" on the social networks spreading positive messages of self-love. And it's happening literally all around the world. Here's a selection of some of the international champions of the Body Positivity Movement, coming from different countries and backgrounds and stories to tell.
Italy lands at the UN with a powerfull speech on bodyshaming
Italian rapper Marianna Mammone, 25, in art BigMama, was a contestant at last month's Sanremo Festival, the most popular Italian song television contest and award ceremony. Known for her lyrics of great social impact, telling the story of how she was bullied as a teenager, she showed up on stage well aware that her body would have attracted nasty comments. And so it did.
Besides the insults from random spectators, a body-shaming tweet by a professional journalist caught the attention of the CEO of the RAI public network broadcasting the show who called for immediate disciplinary action the reporter.
"Whatever a woman does will always be criticized for her physique," Mammone said in a recent interview.
Being on stage, wearing whatever she wanted, being provocative and defiant while singing her song La rabbia non ti basta (Anger is not enough for you), addressing all the rage she felt in her adolescent years, made such waves that she was invited by the UN to give a speech to an international audience of 2,000 teenagers.
"All my life I was made believe I wasn't enough, in fact, they made me believe I was completely wrong. My physique made people think of me as “not good enough”, even before they got to know me. A fat person in the imagination of others is a sluggish, lazy, inactive, unintelligent person who makes bad choices and often has no desire to improve. I grew up believing that I wouldn’t amount to anything, that I would never get where I wanted. For a person like me, dreaming was useless. I couldn't have done it anyway, I was just a fat little girl. But I am much more, and now I am finally aware of it.
Barbie Ferreira shows the toxic side of bravery
Barbie Ferreira, 27, Brazilian-American, known for her role as Kat in the series Euphoria, was a plus-size model before being an actress and she didn't really liked her body before entering the modeling world, where she was forced to face the truth: contrary to her belief, her body was just as good as the others.
And Euphoria taught her the same lesson, and so did to the audience, many of whom thanked her for her portrayal of a character in which they could see themselves.
Ferreira's confidence and love for herself quickly made her the face of body positivity, even though the actress says to prefer the term "body neutrality" which "focuses on what one's body can do."
Body positivity can become toxic too if pushed to its limits, a feeling well depicted in a scene from Euphoria: "If you're not the norm," she says "in Hollywood or fashion, you're automatically seen as a brave person, which I think is very offensive, and I think it's hard to always be put in that box and have this pressure to be happy with yourself at a young age."
Anjana Bapat dances stereotypes away
Based in Mumbai, Anjana Bapat, 33, may be India's best-known body-positivity influencer, breaking through as a belly dancer and TV and film personality exuding confidence and warmth. Being a Bollywood dancer, the kind of dance that "requires" a certain body type, she's putting herself against society's expectations. She shows off her dancing skills and positive attitude through her Instagram account.
She refers to Indian beauty as an insane set of standards, that put a blanket of insecurities over her as a youth. After finding herself in the dancing field, she discovered a talent for modeling too.
Arguing that "plus-size" is an outdated term, because it tends to classify a different category, whereas the whole point of it is inclusivity, she asserts that there should be more shows and campaigns that picture different bodies altogether without actually labeling them as 'different'.
Same rule applies to dancers, who should not be pushed to be skinny, but to be strong, muscular, fit. There's no need to trace a line dividing bodies that can and cannot, if not purely referred to physical preparation.
In one of her Instagram posts you can read "dance is almost everything. Through love, hurt, injuries, angst, nerves, through everything. It's one of my inanimate anchors."
Spanish influencer wants you to "dress happy"
Spanish fashion influencer Eli Quesada has a motto that's a bit different than dress cool or chic: it's "dress happy." Her online handle is @vistetequevienencurvas (get dressed, curves are coming). She studied to become a stylist and a personal shopper and once she realized the huge gap that inhabits the fashion industry as for the different body types, she seized the moment, founding her own brand in 2011.
"I felt that external tools were not enough for a real and integral transformation of women, so I continued training with coaching and psychology techniques, applied to fashion," she writes in her website.
Through Instagram and Facebook, together with a Youtube channel and a website, she broke free on the internet and more: Dress Happy is also her own clothing line. She won Brandea 2023 Biggest Personality Award for her hard work in building a better environment, where everybody could feel included.
On her channels, she talks about the latest trends, she tries on clothes from different brands, she promotes her own too. All of this while pitching topics as self-acceptance and self-love, disseminating positive messages to an audience that keeps growing every year.
Ugly Betty still fights against stereotypes
"You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin."
This excerpt from the Barbie movie on what's it like to be a woman happen to come from the actress America Ferrera, 40, who used to be considered "Hollywood's version of imperfect," as she stated in an interview for Elle Magazine, when she was a younger actress, notably in the role of Ugly Betty.
"What's so insane is, you go back and look, and I had a very average-size body. And so the idea that people were looking at me and saying 'that's curvy' is crazy."
She has since explained that she had actually always felt at ease in her own skin, and might not have needed the Body Positivity Movement. But being labeled as a young curvy girl was surely not an easy path down the road of self-acceptance. "I don’t feel alone in that,” she added in the interview for Elle magazine. “There are so many women who were called brave, just because they are people in bodies.”
Zach Miko is the male role model we needed
When talking about Body Positivity, men are often left out. But they too may feel the pressure to be tall, buff or dressed in a certain way.
Zach Miko, 35, a plus-size Target model, later signed to IMG Models' new Brawn Division, was interviewed by Bruce Sturgell for Chubstr, a clothing line and website designed for amplifying the range of male sizes and to spread a positive attitude towards bodies of all shapes. "It’s usually a frustrating and often depressing experience to go to normal stores and try to find clothes that fit you," he admitted.
Miko recalled the humiliation of one shooting when they brought the wrong size clothes, which had to be cut opened in the back in order to not make it look stretched.
He admits to having thought for a long time that he didn't deserve new clothes, just because they couldn't fit him. Once he was spotted from the modeling agency and started off his career as a plus-size model, he re-discovered the beauty of feeling at ease in his own skin. "Men have to love who they are. I think accepting and loving your shape and size is something that men’s lines would love to give us, as soon as we, their customers ask for it."
Ashley Graham, the first plus-size model
Considered the first model to break free in the fashion industry as plus-size, Ashley Graham signed a modeling contract at just 12 years old. At 37, she doesn't like the term plus-size anymore, considering it to be outdated and divisive.
She's been fighting for inclusivity since the beginning of the 2000s, and gave a TED talk where she explained that her would-be "flaws" are still part of her and they are something to love and to take care of.
Today she is connecting on Instagram, where she shows her curves, her cellulite, and every other 'flaw' everyone on this social media tries to cover. And now that she's a mom of two, Graham takes time to explain how the body can change once you give birth.
Plus-size and colorfull chinese influencer Scarlett Halo
“Do you think you look good or fat?" a TV host asked Chinese plus-size model and influencer Scarlett Hao. She has a personal brand under her name specialized in clothes for every size, aiming to encourage body positivity. Beauty standards in China are even tougher than the West. She's among the first women to have battled against the Chinese beauty formula, being stylish and above average size at the same time.
In 2015 she founded her personal brand Scarlett Halo, to share her fashion style and body-positive messages, using #Asiangotcurves in all her social media pages. She now uses Instagram to promote a healthy lifestyle and self-acceptance, which seems difficult, if not impossible, with these unattainable beauty standards.
Hao doesn't restrain herself from adding pops of color and "daring" to dress however she wants. On her website, under the name Outfits, she posted pictures in a bikini, of her graduation day and the Coachella outfits, a must for anyone in America — or Asia.
Park I-seul, first South Korean "average body" influencer
Park I-seul is the first body-positive South Korean influencer. Her journey began when she was a teenager trying to meet beauty standards she saw on social media, dieting constantly and winding up with serious eating disorders. While fighting her eating disorders, she started to show herself on the internet in her "bare" skin, meaning that she didn't want to cover what she thought were flaws anymore.
The message given through her Youtube videos and Instagram account is to love and appreciate one's body regardless the size of it. She tried in vain to hit the runway, wanting to show that a 'natural size', one neither thin nor "plus", was needed in the field.
So she planned her own show, titled "Outfit for Tomorrow", the first in South Korea to accept models of different sizes. “I felt rewarded as I was able to show to the fashion industry that there is growing demand for models of various sizes,” she declared.