The now established body positive community is making waves on Instagram by challenging the narrow confines of beauty. It prioritises learning to love yourself completely as you are and challenges cultures of diet and self-hate.
The body positive activists are fighting for more. They want every person to feel happy and confident in their own skin and work against a toxic culture of self-hatred. They work to normalise seeing a range of body types and sizes, without photo-shopping away normal parts of anatomy that have been taught to be ‘flaws’ such as stretch marks and cellulite.
What plus size representation does exist, however, is still incredibly limited. As campaign led by Michelle Elman, body confidence coach and activist, sought to draw attention to stereotypes of Asian women as ‘petite’ often meant they are left out of even plus size and diversity focused campaigns
We’re far from seeing plus size inclusivity across high end designers with sample sizes, still typically running at a size 0-4, whilst typical high street stores carry from 4-14. But when the average woman in the Europe, is the top end of this spectrum at a size 14-16, it’s no wonder so many women feel excluded from fashion! Body positivity is all about ensuring women are happy in their skin, no matter the size, the fashion industry just needs to catch up.
