The Body Positivity Movement Isn’t Dead (Even If It Feels Like It Is)

We’ve been here before, and most millennials will tell you that it didn’t turn out well for us. It’s not GLP-1s themselves that are the problem, or bariatric surgeries, or any single person’s decision to lose weight. It’s the resurgence of thinspiration and pro-ana content in the form of #SkinnyTok. It’s the misuse of medications and other tools to achieve a level of thinness that has nothing to do with health or happiness. And it’s the lack of care or regard for those who do live in bigger bodies and are not actively pursuing weight loss for whatever reason.

“What’s making this moment feel so confronting is visibility,” Gordon says. “We briefly saw more body diversity in mainstream spaces, and now we’re watching those bodies disappear again. Many people who entered public view in non-thin bodies have since lost weight, and when bodies shrink, it’s noticeable. That shift can feel like regression, even though the underlying value system never truly changed. This cycle underscores the persistent obstacles the movement faces.”

I guess that’s where my naivete got the best of me when I wrote about these issues in the past tense. Anti-fat bias and the conflation of extreme thinness with beauty, discipline, and health has never gone away. But this moment in time does feel closer to the toxicity of the early ’00s, when tabloids freely and shamelessly compared celebrity bikini bodies and bloggers speculated about every pound lost or gained. “What has changed is not the pressure to be thin, but the scale and speed of its amplification by technology,” Gordon says. “Medications, filters, AI, cosmetic procedures, and heavily edited images intensify unrealistic standards, making them even less attainable and more pervasive.”

Therapist and eating disorder specialist Alyssa Mass, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says cultural waves are rarely the true mark of the “beginning” or “end” of anything, including the body positivity movement. “Frankly, I think that type of absolute black-and-white thinking is more dangerous than anything,” she says. “The pendulum swings, and medical and technological advances always shift our world and culture. We don’’t need to sensationalize those changes. We can, however, continue to learn, grow, and have a healthy dialogue about what’s going on around us and how we want to engage.”