When singer Lizzo was featured as the first big Black woman on the cover of Vogue, she had one clear message to convey: body positivity has become too ‘commercialized.’ To say that she is right would be an understatement.

Body positivity is the idea that you should be happy and proud of your body, regardless of its shape, size, or adherence to beauty standards. Today, brands love to sell this woke idea of “body positivity” via a whole new range of products, yet they are the same brands that once funded body image problems with spotless Barbie dolls and size zero models, such that magazine images influenced an ideal body weight in 68% of adolescent girls. However, now that they are campaigning for “love yourself” and “be yourself” movements, they must be encouraging body positivity, right? 

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Unsurprisingly, quite the opposite. Let’s consider the recent body positivity movement before moving onto what brands are doing to fix problems. Ever since the emergence of social media, Instagram has become the platform of choice to promote body positivity, with hashtags like #BodyPositivity on the rise. However, social media has also enabled relatively thin influencers to hijack the movement with selfies, sponsorships, and lifestyle pictures. While posting images may nearly be harmless, these are distracting us from the real target.

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Since the movement has garnered considerable media attention, fashion brands have moved to feature plus-size models, with more than 54 plus size women featured in renowned fashion shows in Spring 2019. “Plus” in the fashion industry, however, means size 8 or 10, when an average woman in the US is size 14 while an average woman in the UK is size 16. Therefore, the fashion industry, in conjunction with inappropriate social media representation, has reduced body positivity to only curvy white women, adhering to conventional beauty standards after all. Therefore, it is obvious that fashion brands are not interested in inclusivity, but in entering new markets and cashing in on new trends.

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Consider this: research by Florida State University found that when women were shown images of plus-size versus average versus thin models, women recalled plus-size models better, meaning that if a woman is shown an advert with a plus-size model, she is more likely to remember the brand and the product. This points to why brands are suddenly insistent on featuring curvy models, passing it off as their drop in the ocean of the body positivity movement than admitting to commercialization.  

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Yet, even beyond advertisements, there is a huge demand for plus-size clothing – 1/3rd of women in the US identify themselves as plus-sized – and brands have sprung up to cater to this demand. Today, most brands have a plus-size collection, but more often than not, plus is another section, department, or shop altogether, alongside being a separate price range with what is dubbed to be “fat tax,” despite XS and L being priced the same conventionally. Thus, what brands fail to understand is that supply does not warrant inclusivity.

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In the US, the market for female plus-size clothing has crossed $24 billion. While a fortune is being made off plus-size people, there is no message of body positivity being sent the other way – only an aggravation of pre-existing stigma and insecurity is being perpetrated further. Until brands stop exploiting the body image standards they crafted, no revolutionary magazine covers or endorsements can work wonders. Yet, regardless of whether brands change or not, you mustn’t let your self-worth be defined by the body image that fashion brands have dictated for you.

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Written by: Unnathi Utpal Kumar

Edited By: Aarushi Bansal

Designed by: Alima Shala

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