“Body-positive” activists are upset that reality TV star Louise Thompson titled her upcoming book “Body Positive,” claiming the actress is stealing language that’s actually meant to describe obesity-acceptance.
According to the Bookseller, “Body Positive” details Thompson’s transformation from “an anxiety-ridden party girl, battling with mental health and an unhealthy relationship with eating” to a woman who found “happiness, calm, direction and self-love” through better relationships with fitness and food.
Immediately after The Bookseller tweeted about the book, people took offense to the title:
Made in Chelsea's @LouiseAThompson is publishing a recipe and fitness book with @YellowKiteBooks: https://t.co/saVFS88Baj pic.twitter.com/D76O3JNM7l
— The Bookseller (@thebookseller) November 28, 2017
It’s so ableist to continue to imply that health is an option for everyone and it’s simply a matter of diet and lifestyle. This would only be said by someone who clearly has never struggled with their health. Also what qualifies her to be an expert in bopo?!
— Michelle Elman (@ScarredNtScared) November 28, 2017
Also the term ‘body positive’ is about loving and appreciating your NATURAL body. NOT sculpting it into something unattainable
— Eve Simmons (@EveSimmns) November 29, 2017
Correct. But naming your book “body positive” when you’ve done nada for marginalised bodies (the reason body positive was started) is a reach and quite frankly offensive. https://t.co/qT30y5LFWL
— Gracie 🌼 #woke&well (@GraceFVictory) November 28, 2017
Body positivity is trash because of issues like this.
— Stephanie Yeboah (@NerdAboutTown) November 29, 2017
The movement has forgotten about the very bodies it was created to protect.
There's now a new standard of beauty within body positivity and it makes me sick.
This is why I refer to what I believe in as 'fat positivity', because I don't know how I can be any clearer about what needs to be highlighted/celebrated.
— Stephanie Yeboah (@NerdAboutTown) November 29, 2017
Indeed, many people were upset that Thompson had the audacity to reference body-positivity, since the movement is allegedly intended to be for overweight people accepting their obesity.
Yeboah told Metro.co.uk, “Seeing as the community was created from the fat positivity community, fat bodies should be the priority.”
“Fat people do not have enough safe spaces for us where we can celebrate and love our bodies and each time we create a new movement, it is hijacked by smaller people under the guise of ‘wanting to feel included,” she continued.
Model Kitty Underhill told IB Times UK she was upset because Thompson is not overweight and is not black.
“So this is yet another example of how body positivity is being diluted, co-opted and sold back to us under the guise of empowerment. NOTHING about this book is body positive,” she said.
“I'm tired of an amazing movement being completely ripped away from its origins. We wouldn't have body positivity if it weren't for brilliant fat women of colour and the fat activism of the 60s, and yet body positivity has become so diluted that it is centring slim white women, forgetting about the marginalised women that built up this movement in the first place,” she continued
“Louise's book is a slap in the face to all the fat acceptance activists who pioneered body positivity,” she concluded.
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