# Why Body Neutrality Works Better Than Body Positivity ## What is body positivity? Body positivit
The body positivity movement has for years been presented as an answer to toxic beauty standards, a remedy for low self-esteem, and a path to self-acceptance. Social media filled with photographs of people proudly displaying their bodies regardless of their shape or size, and hashtags like #bodypositivity accumulated billions of views. Yet in recent years, a question has been growing louder: is it enough? Or even – is it perhaps a bit too much?
It is precisely in this space that a concept was born which many psychologists, nutritional counsellors, and mental health professionals describe as a fundamental shift in how people perceive their own bodies. Body neutrality does not require you to love your body. It is enough to simply stop hating it.
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What body positivity originally promised and where it hit its limits
To understand why body neutrality is coming to the fore, it is useful to first look at what body positivity originally represented. The movement emerged from communities of fat women and women of colour in the 1960s and 1970s as a political protest against discrimination. It was a radical act of resistance against a system that determined whose body was valuable and whose was not. It was only in the last decade that this movement became a mainstream affair, penetrating the advertising campaigns of multinational corporations and the front pages of fashion magazines.
And that is precisely where the problem began. When major brands started selling "self-acceptance" as a product, the original political dimension of the movement disappeared. Moreover, it became apparent that the call to "love your body" is psychologically unattainable for many people. Consider someone recovering from chronic pain following a serious injury, or someone struggling with an eating disorder. Telling such a person to love their body can sound not only hollow, but in the worst case, like yet another reason to feel like a failure. If I cannot manage to feel love for my own body, does that mean I have failed at self-acceptance too?
Psychologist and eating disorder specialist Anne Poirier, author of The Body Joyful, put it precisely: "Body neutrality is like a ceasefire. You don't have to love every inch of your body – you just have to stop waging war on it."
Body neutrality: an approach that promises not love, but freedom
Body neutrality as a coherent concept began to take more distinct shape around 2015, when life coach Anne Poirier started popularising it, and it was gradually adopted by a wide range of therapists and nutrition professionals. The core idea is surprisingly simple: your body is neither your greatest achievement nor your greatest failure. It is a tool that enables you to live.
Rather than convincing yourself each morning in front of the mirror that you are beautiful and that you love your thighs or your belly, body neutrality proposes a different approach. Shift your attention away from how the body looks and towards what it can do. It can walk, breathe, embrace a loved one, digest food, smile. The body is not a decoration – it is a living organism with its own logic and needs.
This approach is closely related to what research in the field of positive psychology describes as functional body appreciation. This is the ability to perceive the body through its functions and capabilities, rather than through its appearance. Studies show that people who adopt this perspective display lower levels of body dissatisfaction, fewer anxious thoughts associated with food and movement, and an overall higher quality of life.
Consider a concrete example from life. Jana is a thirty-four-year-old teacher who spent two decades on various diets and in various stages of hatred towards her own body. When she first encountered the concept of body positivity, she tried to follow its logic – writing affirmations every morning about how beautiful she was, following influencers who were meant to inspire her towards self-acceptance. The result? She felt like a fraud. "I was telling myself I was beautiful, but I didn't believe it for a second. It felt like lying to myself," she described her experience. It was only when she came across body neutrality that something changed. She stopped asking whether she loved her body and began noticing what her body did for her – that it carried her to work every day, that it let her play with children, that it allowed her to cook food she enjoyed. This small shift in perspective did not transform Jana's relationship with her body overnight, but it opened a door that had previously been locked.
What this approach looks like in everyday life
Moving from body positivity to body neutrality does not mean that a person gives up on self-care or stops paying attention to their health. On the contrary – many experts point out that caring for the body motivated by respect is more sustainable and healthier than care motivated by the desire to achieve a certain appearance. When a person moves because movement brings them joy or energy, rather than to "burn off" a Sunday lunch, they have an entirely different relationship with movement. When they eat because the body needs nourishment, rather than because they have "earned" it or "not earned" it, their relationship with food is different too.
In practice, this can take many forms. Some people begin to consciously notice negative thoughts about their body and, rather than replacing them with positive ones (as body positivity teaches), simply learn to let them go. "My thighs are too big" – this thought arrives, but it does not have to stay. It does not need to be replaced with the thought "my thighs are beautiful". It can simply pass. Others begin to approach movement and food with greater curiosity than judgement – what does this food give me? How do I feel after a walk? What physical activities bring me joy?
An important part of this approach is also the conscious reduction of influences that constantly remind us of what a body should look like. Research published in the journal Body Image repeatedly shows that exposure to idealised images of bodies – whether in advertisements, fashion magazines, or on social media – is directly linked to body dissatisfaction. Body neutrality therefore naturally includes media literacy and a critical perspective on what images of bodies we consume and why.
Interestingly, body neutrality also resonates with philosophical traditions that appear far removed from the wellness industry. Stoic philosophy, for instance, teaches that it is wise to focus on what we can control and to accept what we cannot. The shape of our body, its natural proportions, or genetic predispositions are largely beyond our control. To focus on them as a measure of one's own worth is therefore – in the words of the Stoics – a waste of energy in the wrong place.
Body neutrality also corresponds well with the principles of intuitive eating, an approach developed in the 1990s by nutritional counsellors Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. Intuitive eating rejects diets and rules as tools for regulating the body, and instead teaches listening to the natural signals of hunger and fullness. Like body neutrality, it does not operate with judgements of "good" and "bad" food, but with the question of how I feel after eating and what my body truly needs. More on this approach can be found, for example, in the book Intuitive Eating, which is today considered one of the foundational texts in the field of a healthy relationship with food.
It is worth noting that body neutrality is not exclusively a women's concern. Although it is women who have historically been most exposed to pressure around a particular body ideal, men face their own forms of this pressure – whether it is the ideal of a muscular body or the stigma associated with excess weight. According to data from the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States, men also suffer from eating disorders, with their cases significantly underdiagnosed, partly because the cultural narrative around body ideals has long been presented as a purely female issue.
Precisely because body neutrality is not built on the ideal of loving one's body – which may be a varying distance away for different people – it is more accessible to a broader spectrum of individuals. It does not require a person to be in excellent psychological health in order to engage with it. On the contrary – it can be a first step on a journey that is still leading towards better mental health.
The world of healthy living is changing. Sustainability – whether in the context of the environment or one's own health – is becoming a key word. And just as people are increasingly aware that addressing climate change does not require perfection, but conscious everyday decisions, the same holds true for one's relationship with one's own body. You do not need to love it. It is enough to stop fighting it – and to begin respecting it as a partner with whom you share your entire life.
