Where Is Body Positivity When the Body Is Thin?

Another recent celebrity story to generate endless conversation, opinion and scrutiny is Ariana Grande and to be more precise, her appearance.

Grande is due to step back from public-facing work after her current tour ends on 1 September. Her representative has specifically referred to the relentless public scrutiny surrounding her and her appearance, while Grande herself has spoken about needing boundaries and taking a break.

In short, the constant diatribe being spewed her way is centred around her body, her weight, and how thin she looks. Whether she looks healthy. What people think has happened to her. Photographs and videos are being analysed, compared and discussed across social media and the press. The conversation has become big enough that I heard a radio show host discussing it, questioning where the line is and why people think they have the right to pose these questions about a celebrity.

I find myself wondering while watching all of this, though, where is the outrage from the body positivity movement? Where is the movement and all the people that have been screaming for the last ten years or so about body shaming?

For years, we have been told, rightly in many cases, that commenting on somebody else’s body can be damaging. That we don’t know somebody’s health simply by looking at them. That someone’s size isn’t an invitation for strangers on the internet to analyse them. That people deserve dignity regardless of what their body looks like. So why does that principle suddenly seem much quieter when the person being discussed is thin?

Raising the question of a certain celebrity’s health or even remarking on their changed appearance is one thing. But here it has gone so far that she has chosen to take some time out of the public eye. Even so, my surprise is less on the public social media pile on and more on the lack of response from the movement that has been so vocal against body shaming. 

It just makes me think that it really only is body positivity when it concerns an overweight person and for some weird reason not interested when the person is the opposite. I mean body positivity is body positivity and body shaming is still body shaming on both sides of the coin. Or at least it should be.

The body positivity movement has spent years challenging society’s obsession with judging people according to their size. But if that principle genuinely matters, it has to work both ways. Overweight, underweight, muscular, skinny or anything in between. 

Otherwise, perhaps what we’re defending isn’t really body positivity. Perhaps we’re only defending certain bodies from being judged.

And that isn’t quite the same thing.