Occasionally people will send me content and ask for my thoughts. Most of the time my thoughts are obvious (no, you cannot “lose weight without dieting” (a calorie deficit is the definition of a diet), sometimes often they are snarky (Jesus isn’t the reason that you “can’t control yourself around food”, although influencers peddling that bullshit should probably seek Jesus bc WTF) and sometimes the content makes me feel really sad about the state of our industry and how fundamentally broken most people’s relationship with their bodies is.

And this piece of content is no different. This was a carousel, where a coach details their “journey”, from struggling with dieting, hypothalamic amenorrhea (loss of menstrual cycle, mostly due to not eating enough calories) and then mentions a sentence that I have been thinking about ever since I read it:

“I tried ‘body positivity’ and ‘food freedom’ and it was just an excuse to do nothing about how I felt about my body.” 

This is one of the saddest sentences I have ever read (and I HAVE READ YOUNG MUNGO FFS). The coach then goes on to state that she decided to “get control back” by dieting and losing body fat again, and now her life is much better and all of her troubles went away and she can conveniently help you do the same.

And I think it’s important that we touch on this.

Because so much of why people think “body positivity” doesn’t work or why they “fail” at body positivity is because they were never doing anything meaningful to build positive body image in the first place.

What is body positivity?

Body positivity is a social movement that centres around the belief that everyone is entitled to feel good or positive about their body, regardless of shape, race, weight, physical ability or gender. Sounds like something we should want right?

So, if you think “body positivity” is a scam still, you either:

1. Don’t know what it is

2. Don’t think people should feel good in their bodies because they are “different” - and that makes you a fucking dickhead, and your opinion irrelevant.

The number one reason why people (especially coaches) fail at “body positivity”

Most people fail to build a positive body image because they don’t understand how to build one in the first place.

And what is most common in people who fail to build a positive body image?

They are too invested in their appearance. Their body is still a huge part of their identity, and they haven’t made any attempt to change that. They think it’s just saying “every body is beautiful” into the mirror three times like some sort of Bloody Mary re-enactment and then act surprised when it doesn’t work…

 

When your appearance or having a certain “look” is central to who you are and incredibly important to you... you don’t want to change that.

And unfortunately, as the good saying goes… what you’re not changing, you’re choosing.

There has to be a shift. And I get it.

I have been that soldier…

As coaches we grow up with so much pressure to “look the part”. Whether or not you agree that your body is your business card (and I sure as fuck don’t), you still exist in an environment where a lot of people think that is the case. For many years, I derived my sense of self from how many gym sessions I could fit in a week. I loved being described as the “fit” friend, the girl who was always down to lift or training for something (recovering pick me, sorry). I got a secret thrill from people describing me as dedicated (it was actually obsessive, but ok) when I trained before 20 hour shifts, or wished they had my motivation when I trained on holidays (I literally couldn’t bear the thought of missing a training session).

My entire personality was just high-waisted leggings and a push-pull-legs split.

Cultivating your entire identity around being the “fit” friend isn’t as helpful or aspirational as you think. It actually limits your ability to progress, and definitely hurts your body image.

As long as your self-worth can be directly correlated with your step count, you won’t ever experience life in the way it should be lived. You won’t be able to handle setbacks or challenges to your identity, because the “fit friend” by nature, is transient.

One of the main drivers of how we feel about our bodies is called appearance investment. And that means how important your physique or your appearance is to you in terms of how you define yourself and your self-worth.

You need to do the work.

When most people, especially people who are very active or who are coaches, come to work with me - one of the first things we will do is start divesting how much your appearance matters to your self-worth.

For positive body image to “work”, you have to stop letting your appearance be the main metric for yourself worth. The scale cannot be the measure of how “good” you are, and a clothing size cannot be a marker of your success.

As long as you do not address this - you are doomed to fail on your body image journey.

I don’t wanna do hard things either.

And I get it - challenging your identity, especially one you’ve cultivated for yourself over many years is hard.

 

It’s easier to stay the same.

It’s easier to say “body image doesn’t work” or “body image is just a scam” than it is to get up and do the fucking work on yourself.

It’s easier to spend the rest of your life on and off a diet than it is to believe there’s more to life out there for you if you are willing to put in the work.

 

Body positivity isn’t a scam.

When people say “body positivity” doesn’t work, I get a little raised eyebrow-y (which is sometimes very hard, depending on how recent my Botox was).

And my question to them would be:

Well, what were you doing to build body positivity?

And if you had a coach…

• Had your coach done any further training or qualifications in body image?

• Did you do any work on how to value your body beyond appearance?

• Did your coach comment on your appearance (positive or negative)? - because THEY might be over-invested in your appearance too!

• Did they give you the tools for when you don’t like your body, or was it just “remind yourself we all have bad days!”?

Bin off the “body positivity is a scam” BS.

I’ve helped people like their bodies for the first time in their adult lives.

I’ve helped people overcome 30 years of appearance obsession.

I’ve helped people finally find body confidence, regardless of their size.

Seriously, check here