Body positivity is a social movement that advocates for the acceptance of all bodies, regardless of size, shape, skin tone, gender or physical abilities. While its overall intention is good, the body positivity movement has gained criticism. Body positivity is a subset of toxic positivity some feel that it blames people for now they feel based on their mindset. It can also push people into trying to feel something that they don’t.

Based on our group discussion, my friends still believe in body positivity. There are pros and cons about body positivity, a pro of body positivity is that it can help chip away at thoughts that come from diet culture-the ones that make us believe that our bodies are not worth loving unless they are a particular shape or size. And the con of body positivity is telling people to love their bodies when they truly don’t can teach people to further suppress their feelings, and suppressing their feelings is linked with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.

We still need a mindset of body positivity but we must control our mindset to get the balance between the negative and positive effect. If we normalize it too much, we don’t know what is wrong with our body. For example if we are too skinny, we don’t know if we get malnutrition. It has a negative effect on our body. So, we have to be aware about our health too. Positive effects of body positivity make us feel more optimistic about our body and make us confident. Of course in this way, body positivity is not harmful because it makes us live in happiness and believe our body is loved thus fostering a sense of enthusiasm to change oneself to be healthier both physically and mentally.

What if we are bullied because of our bodies? Actually it depends how we take and respond to their statement or opinion. First, we must check someone's statement: does it have a good or bad impact? If the statement has a good impact on our bodies, it’s okay to make changes that make ourselves healthier than before. But if the statement has a bad impact, we can ignore it and stay with our body positivity and focus on our self confidence. Be yourself in a positive way, always filter the information that you get, and don’t overdo it when you act on something.

Based on our group discussion, the conclusion is body positivity is good or it's not harmful if we can control our thoughts not to overdo it in applying it, but it can be harmful if we neglect our health too much and don’t express the emotions we feel that make us feel uncomfortable. Therefore, we can do positive things to avoid things we don’t want, for example, we can start a new healthy lifestyle by eating fruits and vegetables, do sports activities at least once a week, and give our body and thoughts positive words like, “I accept my body as it is”, “My body helps me in many ways”, “I am thankful for my body because it does so much for me”, and other positive words you can say to yourself.