Europa-Universität Flensburg

Internationales Institut für Management und ökonomische Bildung

Abteilung Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie
Modul: M3
Seminar: Vertiefung: Entwicklungs- und pädagogische Psychologie
Dozent_in: Johanna Degen /Scott Simpson
Semester: Hese2020/21

Expose
Body positivity- Healthy after all?

Verfasser: Michel Bach (554998)/ Julian Ritter (550695)

E-Mail: michel.bach@studierende.uni-flensburg.de
julian.ritter@studierende.uni-flensburg.de
Studiengang: B.A. Bildungswissenschaften
Fachsemester: 1 (Michel Bach); 5 (Julian Ritter)
Abgabedatum: 14.12.2020
Introduction

In our society, Instagram is a point of origin for many viral pop-cultural trends like the
“bottlecap-challenge” or “planking” but it is also an initiator for many movements that
try to change our society. For example, the “Black-Lives-Matter Movement” tries to
rule out deep-rooted racism around the world. There are many movements and
hashtags that try to change our cultural perception that is objectively viewed upon as
unjust and therefore tried to be changed. In our case, we want to look at the “body-
positivity” trend and the “fat-pride” trend. “Body positivity” is a growing social media
trend that seeks to challenge dominant societal appearance ideals and promote
acceptance and appreciation of all bodies and appearances. It is a big part of the
growing diversity movement (Recovery Village, 2020) . Closely connected to the
trend of body positivity is the so-called “fat-pride”. The “fat-pride” movement first
started to occur in 1967 in New York City ( Center for Discovery, n.d.). It did not start on
Instagram, but with 17,6K Hashtags on Instagram, it is a vastly popular trend on the
social media platform.

In modern society, self-representation is an important part for most individuals but

with high stakes, if you do not fit in the norms. There are hate and hostility all over
the internet and even in real life communications. Body positivity is a movement that
has recently grown to a huge social media trend and at first sight, it is positive.
Everybody’s body is beautiful as it is and you should love yourself and no one should
say something negative about it. All stretch marks, every mole, every hair (body and
primary), every shape of a body, every height and weight are beautiful.
All this is correct but just in a healthy frame and we need to take a closer look
especially the weight topic.

The current state of research

Some studies and articles are investigating the influence of body positivity on
overweight and obesity. McWhorther concluded that “visual normalization of larger
bodies, that is, more habitual visual exposure to people with excess weight, may
further contribute to the higher prevalence of overweight and obesity“ (MCWORTHER,
2020).
Theoretical Background
In our research, we want to work with the social-psychological term “cognitive
dissonance”. A definition: “Cognitive dissonance is defined as the subjective
perception of incompatibility between two self-relevant cognitions. (…). In other
words cognitions are dominant when one specific cognition implies the opposite of
another cognition”(FISCHER, FREY, PEUS, KASTENMÜLLER 2008, P. 189). With that we
want to see, if certain “body positivity” and “fat-pride” influencer on Instagram create
cognitive dissonance with their knowledge about the risks of obesity because their
positive attitude towards the “body-positivity” and “fat-pride” movement might
undermine or contradict the consequences of being obese or overweight. But what
does it mean to be overweight or obese in a scientific manner? Overweight,
underweight and obesity are all defined by the Body Mass Index (BMI) and is
calculated by the following:
Körpergewicht ∈kg
Body Mass Index= (KROLL LE, SCHUMANN M, HOEBEL J et al. 2017)
( Körpergröße∈m)²

An individual is overweight with a BMI of over 25 kg/m² and adipose with a BMI 30
kg/m² or higher. The BMI does not implicate the dispersion of body fat and is kind of
problematic because increased abdominal fat extends a higher health risk. On these
grounds, a measurement of abdominal grith, 102 cm or higher by men and 88cm and
over by women, helps to point out the higher risk. A big drawback of this indicator is
the lack of attention on physique and age.

Where is the Problem?

Overweight and obesity can be the cause of chronic illnesses like diabetes mellitus
Typ 2 cardiovascular diseases, several types of cancer and a higher risk of death in
young years (VGL. SCHIENKIEWITZ A, MENSIK G, KUHNERT R, LANGE C ,2017, P.1). The body positivity
movement is supporting all this by stating everybody is perfect the way they are.
Although, they are not wrong, your body is far from perfect if you are risking your life
by living that way.
Most body positivity influencers are promoting a fit lifestyle but without body
stereotypes. This is the good side but as always there is a dark side where
influencers are using their broad reach to disinform followers.
Sahra Frances Young (Instagram tag “bodypositivepear”) is an adolescent woman
with more than 12 Thousand followers, who posted on May 2020: “So I'm here to tell
you that your body is absolutely friggin fine. If you're fat, you're ABSOLUTELY STILL
FRIGGIN FIIIIIINE AS FCK.” (bodypositivepear ,2020)
With the definition of the oxford dictionary, the adjective fat describes a body “having
too much flesh on it and weighing too much” (Oxfordlearnersdictionary,2020). By this
definition having too much cannot be fine or healthy, which in this case is a form of
misinformation. With this, she justifies the statement with strong language and not
with arguments that are scientifically proven.

There is a need to consider both sides of the coin because there are positive and
negative aspects of body positivity. Obesity is a growing problem in our society, with
rising numbers and an immense expense for the public health care system.

Expected goals of our study and goals for ourselves

With our research, we want to find out if certain “body-positivity” and “fat-pride”
influencers are indeed promoting an unhealthy lifestyle by relativizing obesity and its
consequences. Therefore, we want to look at multiple influencers on Instagram and
see how many of them in fact are denying the dire consequences of being morbidly
obese. We want to analyse certain captions of their posts on Instagram and see if
they are in fact playing down the consequences of being obese.
We expect to find out that very few of those influencers are relativizing the
consequences of being obese. But we are also expecting to see some exceptions
that there are influencers that promote body positivity and fat pride in a manner that
could pose a threat to the health of a human being.

All this leads us to our research question, which is: “With our research, we want to
answer the question, in what way influencers on Instagram could endorse a possible
threat to human health by propagating “body-positivity” and “fat-pride” by relativizing
its consequences.
Preliminary Literature
FISCHER P., FREY D, PEUS C, KASTENMÜLLER A et al. (2008) The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: State of the
Science and Directions for Future Research, München, Springer, P.189.
KROLL LE, SCHUMANN M, HOEBEL J et al. (2017) Regionale Unterschiede in der Gesundheit – Entwicklung eines
sozioökonomischen Deprivationsindex für Deutschland. Journal of Health Monitoring 2(2): 103 – 120. DOI
10.17886/RKI-GBE-2017-035.2.

MCWHORTER, JW. (2020) Obesity Acceptance: Body Positivity and Clinical Risk Factors.
SCHIENKIEWITZ A, MENSIK G, KUHNERT R, LANGE C (2017), Journal of Health Monitoring: Übergewicht und Adipositas
bei Erwachsenen in Deutschland, Robert-Koch-Institut, Berlin, P.1.

Web Pages

Definition of fat. (o.D.). Definition of „fat“. Abgerufen am 9. Dezember 2020, von

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/fat_1

Gerhardt, L. (o. D.). The Rebellious History of the Fat Acceptance Movement. Abgerufen am 10.
Dezember 2020, von https://centerfordiscovery.com/blog/fat-acceptance-movement/.

The Recovery Village. (2020, 16. September). The Importance of body positivity. The Importance
of Body Importance. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/eating-disorders/related/
importance-of-body-positivity/

Young, S. F. (2020, 28. Mai). bodypositivepear. bodypositivepear. Abgerufen am: 9.12.2020

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAvh5lDJaWa/?igshid=rd6o1q653l25

https://www.instagram.com/p/CITd09aAFde/ ???????

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGqEnx6pPSw/ ??????????