There are a LOT of misconceptions about body image.
Firstly, many people think that body image is a bit more literal, and refers to your physical appearance, but actually, body image refers to the thoughts and feelings that people have about their bodies, and the behaviours they engage in as a result — not how they look.
Secondly, many people associate body image with teenage girls, or think that it is something that only concerns women and weight. While body image concerns and eating disorders disproportionately impact girls and women — and hold them back from achieving in work, school and life — this is an issue that affects everyone, because everyone has thoughts and feelings about the way they look.
Thirdly, a lot of people sum up the work in this space to be ‘body positivity’, or ‘thinking positively about your body’, but it’s so much more than that. Here’s why:
This term isn’t new, and it isn’t ours
Although social media might make body positivity appear to be a relatively new concept all about radical self love, the origins of body positivity are more political, and date back to the fat acceptance movement in the 1960s, led by activists pushing back against weight stigma, medical discrimination, and a culture that devalued larger bodies. This was not about self-esteem or personal empowerment alone — it was a fight for rights, dignity and equity. As the idea spread, it became less about dismantling oppressive systems and more about individual mindset. By the time brands and influencers began promoting body positivity in the 2010s, the political history was all but invisible. The hashtag era turned body positivity into a personal project about cultivating self-love, rather than a collective call to justice.
It’s unrealistic
Many people find it hard to feel positive about their bodies at all, let alone all of the time. On the surface, being told to “love your body” sounds empowering. But in practice, it can feel like pressure. What if you don’t feel love when you look in the mirror? What if you’ve experienced bullying, discrimination or trauma tied to your body? The expectation to be relentlessly positive can invalidate real, complex emotions. This is sometimes called toxic positivity — the idea that we must always be cheerful and affirming, even when our reality is more complicated. For many, body positivity became another impossible standard to live up to: not only should you have the “right” body, you should also have the “right” feelings about it.
It’s focused on individuals instead of systemic change
The biggest drivers of body dissatisfaction are cultural and systemic — beauty standards, media representation, fashion sizing, racism, sexism, ableism and weight stigma. By focusing on self-love alone, body positivity suggests that change comes from fixing our attitudes, not from changing the systems that profit from making us feel inadequate.
It’s not enough
The way we feel about the way we look is central to our mental and physical health. People who are dissatisfied with their bodies are 24 times more likely to develop depression. Appreciating our bodies is associated with higher engagement in physical activity, better diet quality, lower alcohol and other drug use, and even preventative health behaviours like cancer screening and wearing sunscreen. People who appreciate their bodies are more likely to look after them. We need less surface level ‘positivity’, and more deeper acceptance and appreciation of our bodies, because this makes us more likely to look after them.
It’s still about the way we look
Body positivity encourages people to #loveyourbody, but still focuses on appearance. A focus on functionality, and appreciating our bodies for what they can do, means we move away from objectification and appearance. It’s important to know that we are worthy and valued for who we are and what we are doing in the world, rather than what we look like.
You don’t need to love every part of your body. It’s okay to feel indifferent, ambivalent or simply neutral, and recognising that is more realistic and sustainable than chasing forced positivity.
Our multi-layered approach involves:
- Advocacy to change the things about the world that make people feel pressure around their appearance. Although we don’t often call this ‘weight stigma’ work, most of the work we do is designed to dismantle weight-centric approaches to health promotion, health care and health education
- Empowering the people around young people to be able to create settings that can build better body image, by reducing the focus on appearance and reducing teasing and commentary about appearance
- Programs and messages delivered to young people that build the protective factors (particularly appreciation of body functionality and self-compassion) at the individual level
Body positivity in the 2010s sparked important conversations, but it’s no longer enough.
Moving beyond body positivity allows us to imagine something bigger: A world where we are not held back by what we think about the way we look, where there is less systemic pressure to look a certain way and where we have more freedom to be who we are.
Because the end goal isn’t just to feel good about our bodies — the goal is for us to be free to focus more of our time and energy on all of the other things we can be doing if we didn’t put so much pressure on ourselves about our appearance.
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