WHAT WE'RE ABOUT
We are constantly redefining our own perspectives, and therefore tend to write a lot about our personal experiences. Many followers and contributors are living with anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphic disorder, depression, and a variety of other body image disorders or mental illnesses, so please be respectful and remember that health applies differently to everyone. Any and all potentially triggering content will be prefaced with a trigger warning.
RBI supports all races, genders, classes, and sizes. We try our best to make this a safe space for everyone. If we are not doing our job or checking our privilege, we invite you to please inform us.
Some of the artwork you see here has been created by our founder or moderators, some sourced when applicable. Please be kind enough to source this blog whenever you share it's content.
We are not health professionals. Any and all advice provided on this blog is supported only by our own research, studies, and personal experiences; nothing more.
This blog is part of the Safe Space Network.
Debenhams shows diversity in fashion…
By Kay, Editorial Assistant , The Debenhams Blog
“Here at Debenhams we believe that anyone can look fabulous in our range- which is why we’ve decided to break with Convention…
“Our Customers are not the same shape or size so our latest look book celebrates this diversity. We would be delighted if others followed our lead. Hopefully these shots will be a step, albeit a small one, towards more people feeing more comfortable about their boidies,’” said Ed Watson, Director of PR, Debenhams”
Dove hired a forensic artist to draw how women see themselves versus how others see them - the results are moving.
Interesting idea. Thoughts?
“You would look so much better if you lost some weight-“
“You would be so much cuter with make up-“
“Make sure you shave or wax way all that body hair-“
“You shouldn’t wear that-“
“You would be beautiful if you just changed how you look-“
Think of something that you desperately wanted at some point in your life. Maybe you have something right now that you desire. It could be something concrete, like new shoes, or something abstract, like your dream career. Whatever it is, focus on that feeling of desire. That desperate yearning. That I-would-claw-my-own-eyes-out-to-have-it need.
Never wanted anything that badly?
Seriously?Then think about someone/something you miss, or missed in the past. Think about that desire to have that person/thing back. It’s that same desire.Got it? Great.
Now I want you to imagine that all of a sudden, you have the thing you desire. It’s right there, you can see it, touch it, taste it, hold it, whatever. Huzzah! Right?
Wrong.
You have the thing you wanted, but you still desperately want it. The desire, which should have disappeared when you acquired your prize, is still there, as strong as it ever was. Now many how much you hold your prize, how long you stare at it, you cannot assuage your desire. But what can you do? The way to stop desiring something is to obtain it. You’ve done that. What else can you possibly do?
Eventually you decide that the problem must be that you don’t really believe that what you have exists. You’re somehow in denial that you actually possess the object of your desire. In order to satisfy yourself, you need to prove to someone else that you have this object. But there’s a problem. You can’t just go blabbing to anyone and everyone that you have this thing. It’s something that could make people think differently of you, maybe think negatively of you, if they knew what you possessed. For the purposes of this little thought experiment let’s pretend that what you have is an invisible unicorn. A mythic creature that very few people believe exists, and even fewer have actually…seen? Experienced? Cleaned up after? (would invisible unicorn shit be invisible too? Would that be better or worse than cleaning up horse shit? Would it still smell? These are things I wonder.)
I digress.
So you’ve got your unicorn, but you don’t want people to think you’re crazy for saying you have an invisible unicorn in your backyard. So you choose your closest, most open-minded friend, and you tell them about your unicorn. It takes some convincing, and they’re still a little skeptical that what you actually have is a unicorn (maybe it’s just an invisible horse?), but eventually they accept that you do in fact have some sort of invisible creature in your backyard.
Whew.
Maybe, if you’re blessed with really open-minded friends, or even family, you confide in a few more people. And for a little while you feel validated, and your desire actually eases.
But it never disappears. Sometimes it surges up so suddenly and so powerfully that it leaves you breathless. You march out into your backyard and say ‘BUT I ALREADY HAVE THE FUCKING UNICORN’, but it doesn’t matter because you can’t even see the damn thing, just the halter moving around and the grass disappearing as it munches your lawn. And suddenly it dawns on you. Maybe the way to get rid of your desire is to see the unicorn.
But that’s no easy task. It’s possible, you know, but not without confiding in a few strangers (scary thought, bad idea, no no no strangers bad), and not without a lot of money, and a lot of time, and you don’t even know what the unicorn will look like. What if the beautiful creature you’ve been imagining is actually hideous? Worse yet, what if your unicorn really is an invisible horse, and the only thing that made it special was being invisible? You might never be able to make it invisible again. And worse still, what if you are happy with your new horse, and you realize you could have been just as happy with a regular old horse? Because you’ve heard stories of all these things happening, and you know that any one of them is possible.
So you continue to stare at the invisible creature, desperately longing to see it but too afraid (and probably too poor) to start the arduous journey towards actually seeing it.
A better explanation of gender dysphoria I have yet to see. YAAAAAY
Here at RBI, we pretty routinely get submissions from thin people talking about their journey to body acceptance, or asks wondering why we don’t post more images of skinny people. The implication behind these queries is that we need to post images of thin bodies in order to be fully inclusive and truly body positive.
While we firmly believe that body positivity is for everybody, we don’t tend to post images/submissions from thin people, unless they are marginalized in some other way that we feel needs more visibility (trans*, disabled, etc).
The goal of this blog is not just to promote body acceptance or body positivity, but to actively redefine body image. We are not a general body-posi blog, our goals are broader than that, though they encompass body positivity. We are fighting against the dominant cultural norms that narrowly define the acceptable body as thin, white, cis, able-bodied. We are trying to create a space where bodies that are normally erased from the larger cultural conversation can find positive representation.
Therefore, we don’t post images of thin bodies very often, since thin people are very well (even over-) represented within the broader culture.
There are many many general body acceptance blogs on tumblr that accept submissions from everyone (there is a short list of more general body-posi tumblrs below - there are many more that we have missed), and these blogs post tons of images of thin bodies.
In fact, many body positive spaces cater primarily to thin women and RBI is dedicated to filling in the gaps that they ignore. We do not operate in a cultural or activist vacuum.
We believe that continually showing the bodies thin, white, able-bodied cis women in body positive spaces recreates oppressive standards of what a “good” body is. Seeking out bodies that are othered or different than the norm is incredibly important to not only finding self acceptance but also fighting prejudice and stigma.
If RBI was filled with images of thin, white, able-bodied cis women it would fail to redefine body image instead merely repeating what is already the dominant oppressive structure.
None of this is meant to minimize any individual thin person’s personal struggle with body image and body acceptance.
It is something everyone struggles with and it is hard for everyone regardless of size, and we are thrilled that thin people appreciate the blog and find it inspiring. We support body positivity for EVERY single body, but that does not mean we have to represent every body type equally, especially since our goal is to actively combat oppressive body standards by giving positive visibility to marginalized people.
Therefore, if what you are looking for is more images of normative thin bodies, this is not the place to find them in, and we suggest you check out some of the tumblrs below. Thanks.
List of more general body-posi blogs:
- stophatingyourbody
- tummyproject
- fuckbodyhate
- halt-the-body-hate
- fuckyeahbodyhair
- queerability
- vizzability
- you-are-beautiful-baby-22
- allbodies-goodbodies
- thebodypositiveproject
Thank you so much to Liz for putting this little explanation and list of resources together! This will be something we’ll be adding to our slowly-evolving FAQ, soon to come.
Our team has really been coming together and working diligently to help address many of the larger issues and most frequent questions we come across here. Thank you to my team and all our dedicated followers for being so fucking brilliant.
Tired Femme
My little chubbers
A fellow Fibro Femme <3
I wanna start a club
Last year, a kid at work asked me to buy Världens viktigaste bok (“The World’s Most Important Book”). I looked it up and promptly bought it. Since then, it has been constantly lended out or in reservations, and only now have I had the opportunity to take it home and share a few pictures.
Sex ed books always get a dual reaction from the kids: “Ew, that’s gross!” and “Can I borrow it?” - quite often both from the same kid. :-) This has proven more popular than any of the others, which gladdens me, because it’s so good. It’s not just “Let’s tell the kids the basics about reproduction so they don’t get a shock when they enter puberty.” It’s “Let’s tell the kids everything we wish that we had been told in middle school.”
As you can tell from the pictures, it takes care to include a variety of bodies and sexual orientations. It also questions gender roles, portraying both the “factory” where boy things and girl things are packed into neat boxes, and the kids outside the factory trading with each other. The text is much the same. Take this excerpt, for instance:
“Many people who have a vagina feel like girls, and many who have a penis feel like boys. But it’s not always true. Sometimes the body doesn’t fit with how you feel. You can have a boy body but feel like a girl. Or have a girl body but feel like a boy. Your body doesn’t decide who you are, you decide it for yourself. You’re the one who knows if you’re a girl or a boy. Some people don’t feel like they’re boys or girls at all. Maybe you feel like both, or something else entirely. Or you don’t want to choose. There aren’t always words to fit with what you’re feeling, but that doesn’t make the feeling less true.”
The kids at work are conservative, as kids often are. (They have questioned both the fact that I’m still single, and the somewhat androgynous way I dress.) But they’re reading this stuff, in the library, in the classroom, at home. The school nurse, too, has recommended it as reading. I have every hope that for at least some of them, the message will be received.I WANT THIS BOOK.
They need to translate this book in a bunch of different languages for all kids to read. So useful!
this thing is an awesome thing, and I want it to be in English please.
I ADORE this article by Katie I also follow her blog.
I was lucky enough to read a draft of this article before she sent it in to have it published.
She is a complete babe and this is an amazing article about self love and how she found it.
Reporter: What made you lose 37 pounds?
Raven Symone’: The pressure of society.
Finally a celebrity who says the real reason
Finally an actor who speaks the truth. Society makes girls think that they have to look a certain way or people in general will not accept them
I’m pretty sure that in an interview, that someone told her that she looks beautiful she said:
“I was always beautiful, now I’m just thin.”
Image is Powerful: Cameron Russell (by TEDxTalks)
This woman has been a model for 10 years, and she draws on that experience as she explores the consequences we face by idealizing beauty through the media. She acknowledges that in meeting this superficial standard of beauty (by winning a “genetic lottery”), she’s been granted unearned privilege in an appearance-obsessed culture that subsequently oppresses women the further they get from what we have defined as “beautiful”.
She encourages children to pursue a career path (!), and notes that the modeling world is where the most physically insecure people -including herself- can be found. These insecurities could not exist outside of a culture that constructs what beauty is and places so much emphasis on the it. Watch this. It’s honest, surprising, and refreshing. And if you know any young girls, I encourage you to send this video and/or this message their way. It could make a larger difference in their life than you may ever know!
I think this is a very powerful and illuminating point and I don’t just mean her words. I also mean that because she is thin, white, beautiful, and priviledged she is able to get up on this stage and make these points and be taken seriously. There are women and especially WOC who have made these same cases a thousand times are their voices go unheard because they aren’t a privileged model type. But I do very much appreciate Cameron for owning her privilege.
Secondly, this video should be shown to women and girls but this video should also be shown to everyone. The modeling industry is still a patriarchal free for all where much of the industry is controlled by men.
Just because you’ve lost/gained weight doesn’t make you any more/less valuable as a human being.
Recently I’ve been changing my habits to more healthy ones, because it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but didn’t give it much thought. At first, I started a few months ago, telling myself that I wanted to lose a good deal of weight so I could fit into my old jeans again, and I didn’t see the point of buying new ones when I had perfectly good ones that were too tight for what I was then. Now I gladly fit into them, but I realized a few things along the way:
If you’re looking to lose weight, do not place your happiness on how many pounds you lose at a time.
I learned this the hard way. I assured myself I wouldn’t let myself crave weight loss, but once it started, I was filled with glee. Why? I don’t know. Probably because I was starting to fit into the stereotyped body image of “healthy”. I started to feel worthless when I didn’t lose anything after a week, which is silly now that I think about it.
If you’re “bigger”, you will likely not be taken as seriously when it comes to problems with not eating.
See, although in the back of my mind I knew this, I really didn’t. It wasn’t until I was talking to my friend about my placing my worth in the pounds I lost that it really sank in. I told him I felt worthless when I wasn’t losing weight fast enough. I told him I felt super happy when a pound did come off (I’m sure feeling happy is normal, but I depended on the weight loss for my happiness). I told him that I even considered not eating at times just because it might help me lose it faster. And he asked why that was such a bad thing. However, if I were much skinnier, he probably would’ve been concerned about my health. I thought that that was sick. I don’t really blame my friend, I blame society, and I hope that it changes because we’re changing it.
Don’t be afraid to admit your weight to people.
I know I’m not. I’m 5’8”, 19 years old, and 152 pounds. I am happy with myself, and I love my body. Share that you love yourself. Tell other people. Subtly mentioning your weight number can show that you’re not afraid of judgement, which’ll actually probably prevent nasty remarks from happening. The more insecure you appear, the more people will try to feed off of that insecurity. I’ve had quite a few guys go “Wow! You shared how much you weigh out loud. I’m impressed.” and give me a lovely smile of approval of my confidence, just because I was open about myself. Don’t get me wrong, don’t do it to get attention from people. It just feels good to be content with yourself enough to share it.
I could definitely write enough to fill a few pages, but I think I’ll stop here.
It’s okay to be at a larger weight. It’s okay to be at a smaller weight. All that really matters is how healthy you are and how happy you are with yourself, and either way, it’s really nobody else’s business.
SO STRUT YOUR STUFF IF YOU WANT TO, because it’s your body and nobody else’s.
Happy Sunday everyone!
We have a ton of asks and submissions waiting for us in the inbox. Ellie did a great job of a bunch of them last night but I think I’m going to try to get through a bunch today as well.
Don’t be afraid to add to the pile! If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or submissions please go right ahead!