#BodyPositivity in Marketing, Really?

How I Think Brands / Products Revolving Around the Issue Should Behave

"I understand your proposal about positive body image. I think this really benefits our brand and product. But, as the brand manager, I still think people want to be thin and they want it fast."

I just finished a 45 minutes, 80 slides presentation, of the team's strategic branding plan, for a herbal diet pill product. As the response arrived, I smiled meaningfully inside. I did try to defend few aspects here and there, because well, being a typical millennial I would be. In the end (as our "discussion" fell flat) I couldn't help to summarize: do we really shift to body positivism in the way we communicate our brand, our marketing, even ourselves? Most unlikely.

A lot of discussions have been going around about body positivism, such as in The Guardian, The New York Times, and Metro UK. Several studies have been entirely dedicated to learn this phenomenon, including one by Anni Amelia Alentola from Stockholm University in 2017. In Instagram alone, a lot of notable figures also speak up. One of the most notable figures is the super model Ashley Graham.

"We're seriously have moved further forward, no, Lidya?"

Unfortunately, I'm so skeptical and doubtful about it.

Before we go further, I'm going to state my belief: I strongly believe that our body is a gift to us. We must maintain the health, nurture it, and eventually will be hold accountable for it. In this writing, I do not support self-made-reckless-obesity-or-bad-habit, where people eat the whole fast food chains, being a total couch potatoes (whilst perhaps, they have unlimited time for jogging, medically proven to be physically able to do so) scream "I'm body positive, and the world are losers for not seeing my beauty". I strongly think that people who are basically don't want to work their body to be healthy (sometimes be portrayed in smaller body sizes), should never use #bodypositivity as excuses.

Carry on with the story, not so long after that, I watched this YouTube video titled "The Social Media Beauty Cult" Throughout the watch, I have this not-so-scientific-presumption: "In the end, do we even understand what "body positivism" means? Most importantly, have we actually ever bothered to shift our perspective to this area when we're creating our brand persona and/or marketing our products?"

What is "body positivism" ?

Body positivity is a term lacking an academic definition and is not yet defined by the big dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster or the Oxford dictionary (5.3.2017) - and was recently added to Wikipedia. Body positivity means that all bodies should be seen and should be able to do anything. It means accepting all bodies as they are and that a person does not have to fit in a certain model in order to be beautiful or accepted. Body positivity includes not judging yourself so much, as well as forgiving yourself and being gentle to yourself.

(Hultin 2017, Kalenius 2017)

As a woman, spending time with the Asian-rather-intimate-society, I grew up being told to be conscious of my body. To be fair, if we're using media standard, I'm actually very chubby at 5 ft 5, 152lbs. As young as 8, my family (including the extended ones) repeatedly made sure I ingrained the message of "You shouldn't be fat, it's not healthy." But throughout the discussions followed, the subliminal message I extracted was "Don't be fat, you're ugly" instead. I'm not the only one. A lot of young boys and girls are dictated with the same approach, even from way younger than I did.

Research based on consumer preferences suggests that providing women with greater diversity of appearances in media images and developing social networks that focus on positive, non-appearance focused qualities, are worthwhile avenues to promote positive body image at a macro-level (Paraskeva, Lewis-Smith, &Diedrichs, 2017). Qualitative research has shown that individuals with a positive body image tend to interpret appearance-related information in a body-protective manner, internalizing positive information and rejecting or re-framing negative information(Holmqvist & Frisén, 2012; Wood-Barcalow, Tylka, & Augustus-Horvath, 2010).

Cohen, Irwin, Slater, 2019

The question from this quotation is: have we willingly and consciously want to interpret body positivism as opposed to the older beliefs? (Many of us can directly say: "Shifting this huge perspective takes a lot of hard works. Beside, medias won't want to risk their business for going experimental, no?")

We hold medias accountable for romanticizing "thin", blaming them for falsely creating body imagery. We forgot that medias too are places that benefited (re: business model -or shortly - money) from us. Medias need contents that we would love to see, touch, interacted with, so in the end, we're buying.

But medias are also established and maintained by humans (again, even, us). We (the media makers) favor pattern that are familiar. As expected, in terms of "beauty", the thinner ones, the smaller ones are familiar. Result? Repeated orders. Take a look at the Forever 21 case. We communicate self-love, embrace your curve, mindfulness, #bodypositivity, proud of stretchmarks, yet, we place as thin as possible models, heavily edited photos as our visual imagery. (Just to make sure we 'join' the vibe, we shallowly coat our false perspective with heavily designed propaganda within t-shirts).

How much does it cost us? Everything. We can find a lot of findings where deep down, we, especially women compared, and deeply and negatively affected by it. If not publicly, at least silently. It started as young as 10. Take a look at studies by Brunette, Kwitowski, and Mazzeo as well as Betz, Sabik, Ramsey . Not only women, in fact men suffers too. Even though I barely can find scientifically-supported-and-convincing data about this perspective, I found a lot of interesting social media experiment that reflect how the shallow #bodypositivity (which inevitably lead to body shaming) affect men too. Two notable perspectives shared in YouTube by Teen Vogue and As/Is.

"So it's a deadly, unending loop, then?" Getting confused already? Me too.

Wait, hang in there. After learning those materials, I think we're not completely in the dark after all.

As an (on-the-making) branding specialist and marketer and an (on-going) body positive activist, this writing can not be a reflection for all stakeholders contributed to this movement. I can not be a total hypocrite who say I do not benefit from hijacking the perspective and mindset through consumer behavior (who obviously could carry rustic belief of beautiful = thin), (especially from "big clients" who fund my works), at least not now (before I have sufficient and great self-funding / self-owned-systematic-funding for my works). This writing surely can not be the biblical and massive critics and suggestions for the whole integrated and systematic beliefs, the whole industry, cults who believe "beautiful = thin".

Nevertheless, system and massive structure is formed by individuals units (person by person), no?

In the end, one thing I can do for sure is that I promise to stand against any body negativity, as much as possible. I begin with the end in my mind, that all body and self are valuable, beautiful, and have to be cherished. Also, I have to draw the line, understanding clearly, which one is #bodypositivity, which one is basically an unhealthy lifestyle. After beginning with the mind, I can then strategically and creatively plan my plans, my communications, my scripts as body positive as possible. Sure, I will make mistakes and inevitably violate my own values along the way. Definitely, there will be compromises. Still, as a not-so-long-established MCU (die hard) fans, I'm going to quote one of the most influential heroine in my life,

"Compromise where you can. Where you can't, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong, is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say 'No, you move'.""

Margaret "Peggy" Carter

I am positive, that small movements, small changes we make from ourselves will contribute greatly as the tipping point elements. It starts with us, it starts now. Surely, we can embrace the body positive environment everywhere, however, in the future. So, #bodypositivity ? Really, surely, absolutely!