Work in pairs or small groups

1. Think of 5 really positive things to say about someone else. You can either compliment your partner, your class member, your best friend, your family member, or someone else. Tell your partner / group member who you are complimenting.
2. When you have all complimented someone else, think of 3 really positive things about yourself. What are you good at? What do you like about yourself? What do you think you can do better than other people? What are you proud of about yourself? Be truly positive, do not say anything negative disguised as a positive.

1. How did it make you feel to give compliments to someone else?
2. How did it make you feel to give compliments to yourself?'
3. How do you usually respond to compliments yourself?
4. What are the reasons why you wouldn't compliment someone truthfully? For example, you see someone who is very beautiful, why wouldn't you tell them that? Or someone you know is very good at something, but you never give them a compliment. Why?
5. Do you ever tell yourself "good job" or "well done", when you have done a good job, or done something really difficult? Do you ever say "good effort" when you do something difficultu and doesn't go as well as you had hoped?
6. Do you remember to congratulate yourself when you exceed* your own expectations*?

Self esteem

1. Do you think you have a good self-esteem*?
2. Is good self-esteem important? Why/why not?
3. How do you think a person could boost* their self-esteem?

*
exceed = ylittää
expectations = odotukset
self-esteem = itsetunto
boost = tässä: parantaa

Pixabay / user skvarel

Ainomaija Paakkinen, 2019

When you think of your body, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Do you think of something you would like to change in your body, or something you feel ashamed of, or do you smile and think of all the things you can do because of the body you have?

How about when you think of a beautiful person – what type of a body do they have? Is someone beautiful in your eyes only if they have a toned body? Or do you see the beauty of a person who is confident and loves their body, despite their size or, perhaps, disability?

During the recent years, there has been a lot of talk about the right to lead a happy life in the body you have. This movement has been called many names, but one of the most common is the body positivity movement. The idea, quite simply, is that no matter the size of a person, they are worthy of feeling beautiful and happy in their own skin.

From Victorian Dress Reform to women of colour in the 2010’s

The idea of body positivity isn’t new. In fact:
“The oldest roots of body positivity reach back to the Victorian Dress Reform movement. In this movement, women advocated for the acceptance of women’s bodies and discouraged women using extreme corsets or body mutilation to fit the standard of an extremely petite waste and or hourglass figure. This reform also argued for women to not hide their bodies underneath layers of fabric in overly elaborate dresses. Also, these women argued for their right to wear pants.” -Passion blog

The most recent wave of body positivity was sparked by women of colour who wanted to draw attention to the fact that women of colour are rarely seen in the media. This also applies to other groups, such as disabled, queer or trans people in mainstream media, and this campaign for body positivity advocates for them, as well.

Marginalised groups pushing back

The mainstream beauty standard is white, thin and has the perfect (retouched) skin, and we rarely see other body types or skin colours in adverts. When you yourself are white and thin, this is easy to forget. There are, however, a lot of people with different body types, skin colours, and ways of life who would also like to be represented in mainstream media. We need to remember that representation matters: it makes others believe that they can also do what they have seen people do on television or in social media.

As the body positivity movement has become more popular, a lot of thin white women have also begun to preach about body acceptance. This has caused a backlash, because often the way they do it is by targeting their message to other white, normal weight (or thinner) women or men. Many white normal weight influencers may not do this on purpose, but the result is that many who are not white and thin feel that they are being silenced in the movement that was finally supposed to give them a voice. 

A lot of plus-size influencers, on the other hand, have to deal with people fat-shaming and commenting on their health. It is worth remembering that health and body weight do not always correlate, and you can't make assumptions on a person's health based on their looks. Often, online criticism is based on the commentor's need to get a reaction, more than being genuinely worried about the influencer's health.

Many marginalised influencers have called out these commentors. This is a positive phenomenon, because it shows that there is room for all of us to coexist in the same space, despite our size, colour of our skin or our disability.

As the movement has changed, and some feel that it is no longer their movement, the idea of being happy in your body has changed more into the right to not think about your body, at all. Therefore, some influencers like to talk about body neutrality or fat acceptance (Rewire.org), to indicate that you can sometimes feel negative things about you body, and that is normal, too. The idea behind moving away from the term "body positivity" towards "body neutrality", is that the less we spend time worrying about how we look, the more time we can spend on things that make us happy - without forcing ourselves to be happy.

Regardless of terminology, we are all worthy of being accepted for who we are, because we are more than our fat rolls, wonky or missing limbs, scars, speech impediments, mental disorders, or other "flaws". Who we are inside is far more important than who we are outside.

Sources: 

• Healthline.com: https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/body-positivity-origins#1 (Retrieved 19 November 2019)
• Passion blog: https://sites.psu.edu/halepassionblog/2018/02/26/history-of-body-positivity/  (Retrieved 19 November 2019)
• Rewire.org: https://www.rewire.org/living/body-positivity-movement-turning-people/ (Retrieved 19 November 2019)