The Diet Industry Vs The Body Positive Movement

You know the ads. They pop up everywhere. Especially before the summer bathing suit season and the day after Christmas. They prey on your guilt, your insecurities and promise fast results for a thinner you. All you need is willpower and the advertised weight-loss product to succeed. If that doesn’t peak your interest they will also flash a celebrity spokesperson strutting around in a little black dress holding up a big pair of pants. The dreaded “before” pants. What does this even prove? That the product worked really well for some rich privileged person? Wait…don’t they have personal chefs and physical trainers….and…and…(sigh).

Guilt in advertising. It works really well to sell diet apps, cheap workout equipment and weight-loss programs. Its main goal is not to make us healthier but to make a profit from our own self-loathing. Most are shilling quick fixes that work only for the short term. Diets that cut out entire food groups, mail order frankenfood and pseudoscience diet pills. Nothing here to make you healthier, just slimmer for a limited time. The more the dieter fails, the more money is made. The diet industry is one of the most lucrative in North America, making about 20 billion dollars annually.

The blame and guilt of weight gain is always placed on the individual’s willpower and inability to conform to unattainable standards. This is inaccurate. The industry knows full-well that our culture has evolved to make weight management harder. We work longer hours for less pay, try to parent, we worry more and we sleep less. The cost of healthy food has skyrocketed. Cheap food, full of fat and sugar is readily available to the masses. Yet, the diet industry says its all your fault, your burden….its not.

Why The Body Positive Movement is Important

The body positive movement focuses on being comfortable in you own skin no matter what size you are. You have a right to be seen and have confidence in yourself. It focuses on being healthy on your own terms. Not all plus size people are unhealthy and not all thin people are healthy. By choosing to be body positive you are slamming the door on the yo-yo dieting crap that has you running constantly in circles. Not only that, but you aren’t throwing your hard-earned money away on fads. Think about how wonderful you are as a person and worry less about those few extra pounds and imperfections. Since I started thinking positively about my own body instead of feeling ashamed, good things have happened. I stopped missing out on life, made new friends and actually got more physically active. I started making time for myself, doing things that I enjoy. Life is about balance. Finding that balance depends entirely on your own happiness level.

My Body Positive Activities

-Go dancing

-Take part in your community garden

-Go out for dinner with friends

-Get into that hobby you always wanted to do

-Go on road trips like you did in college

-Go for a hike on a local trail.

-Put on that bathing suit and hit the beach

-Volunteer to help out your favourite charity

-Make time for things that make you feel alive!