How Body Representation Improved My Self-Esteem
By: Erin Dean
Tags: Body Positive, Instagram, Self Esteem, Body Image, Self Love

Unlike the exclusionary ideals of Victoria’s Secret, singer Rihanna launched a lingerie brand focused on championing diverse bodies. The first sentence on the brand’s website reads: “Savage X Fenty celebrates fearlessness, confidence, and inclusivity.” Like their competitor, Rihanna also hosts an annual fashion show. Yet, walking her runway includes all genders, races, and body types, showcasing that her collection has no limits. One writer called this “an unequivocal rejection of the one-size-fits-all Europeanized beauty standards that dominated American culture for centuries” (Gaines). Through rejection comes a revolution. Through a revolution comes change.

One of the celebrity participants in Rihanna’s fashion show was Grammy Award-winning artist, Lizzo. Lizzo rose to fame when her single “Truth Hurts” became the power anthem of 2019. As a plus-size woman, she has been a champion for loving yourself and says that she does not like the term ‘body positive.’

Lizzo’s Cover Art for her album “Cuz I Love You.” Credit: Lizzo

“I think it’s lazy for me to just say I’m body positive at this point,” Lizzo said in an interview with Vogue. “It’s easy. I would like to be body-normative. I want to normalize my body. And not just be like, ‘Ooh, look at this cool movement. Being fat is body positive.’ No, being fat is normal.”

Aside from Lizzo’s preaching of self-love, her focus on changing the narrative for fat people is revolutionary. I have never before seen a celebrity say that being fat is normal. Hearing a well-known and respected person with a powerful voice preach body-acceptance has helped me overcome my own reservations about my body.

Another push forward happened for me when the show Shrill premiered on the streaming service Hulu. It stars Aidy Bryant, a plus-sized woman, as a journalist on a journey to self-acceptance. The logline for the show reads she “is determined to change her life without changing her body.” This reiterates back to the idea that fat people cannot feel worthy unless they do something about their weight. Bryant’s character fosters confidence, understands that she is as good as everyone else, and champions the idea that she does not have to be treated differently because of her size.

In episode 4, “Pool,” Bryant’s character Annie goes to a pool party dressed in jeans with no intention of taking a dip — because she fears body shame. To her surprise, the party was full of plus-size women, all in swimwear, soaking in the sun and having a great time. There’s a moment of shock for Annie, larger women have instinctively been taught to hide their bodies and are not allowed to enjoy themselves, and here they are, just living, pure joy, with no concern for shame.

A Twitter user highlights the feeling of pure joy in Shrill’s “Pool” episode and includes an important clip from the show.

It was a transformative moment for Annie, in more ways than one, when she decides to shed her jeans, jump in the pool, and dance with no care in a group of like-minded, and like-bodied individuals. The scene is powerful because you can visually see Annie’s confidence skyrocket. It is uncommon to feel no judgment as a fat person. Watching a show perfectly recreate the journey from covering up, to letting go and accepting yourself is a wonderfully rare experience.

How Social Media Improved My Self-Esteem

Social media has been regarded as where dreams go to die. An abundance of studies have proven the negative mental health effects social media has on people of all ages. Seeing people’s highlight reels of their life has affected me in the past, but I learned how to curate my feeds through algorithms so I only see posts with positive messages.

Until the end of 2017, I would rarely post photos of myself on Instagram. My page would consist of cool architecture, my dog, and snapshots of my time in NYC. With just over 200 followers I would average 40 likes per image*. I was still ashamed of my body and would not want to put it on display online. Moments like those in Shrill, That’s So Raven, and Lizzo’s messages helped shift my perspective on body acceptance, but not as much as body-positive influencers on Instagram.

Influencers are called that for a reason — they influence their audience. Ironically, I began working with two of them at the end of 2017. They helped open my mind to the importance of social media and how influential those with large followings can have on their audience. I started finding new body-positive accounts to follow including Tess Holliday, Kenzie Brenna, and Aliss Bonython, among countless others. I was taken back by these women’s beauty and confidence — and most importantly — they looked like me. Seeing their images and messages of self-love daily helped me shift my perspective, ‘if they can love themselves then I can too,’ and I felt like I was a part of a community.

Tess Holliday photoshoot for Cosmopolitan magazine. Credit: Cosmopolitan UK

Tess Holliday is one of the first plus-size influencers and is the founder of ‘Eff Your Beauty Standards,’ a social media movement for promoting acceptance, support, and unapologetically embracing your body. Now a model, author, and entrepreneur, Holliday gives a lot of credit for her self-love to modeling and clothing. “What shaped my perception about my body and myself was finding better clothes,” Holliday said to Self magazine. “That’s why modeling really changed my self-esteem and how I view myself, because I finally for the first time have accessibility to fashion that I didn’t know existed.” As plus-size women we typically cannot just go to the mall and find a new outfit — our sizes are not carried in stores. Plus-only clothing lines like Torrid are few and far between as well. Following plus-size influencers on social media has helped my journey by finding new clothing companies to shop from that are made for our bodies. By finding clothes I liked, I felt good in them and more confident to show them off in real life and on social media.

In March 2018 I posted my first full body image on Instagram. I got 164 likes*. My confidence was raised due to repeated exposure on Instagram of unapologetic women with larger bodies who convinced me that I have nothing to hide. It’s the Pavlovian idea of conditioning yourself to believe in something, and in this case, I needed to believe in myself. I learned how to curate my social media feed to see what I wanted to see, what I needed to see, to help my self-acceptance journey. Holliday agreed in an interview with The New York Times saying,

“Prior to Instagram, you just saw whatever online. Now you can follow people that are into body positivity… People that inspire me. It’s really important to surround yourself with people that uplift you and support you, and so you really have a community of that.”

Seeing women like me share photos unapologetically and without shame daily, inspired me to try it myself. It helped break the impression I had that I needed to be less to be happy. I am fat, I am more, and I am happy.

*I want to stress that the number of followers or likes on social media NEVER matter and I do NOT quantify my self-worth by them. I am merely mentioning the amount throughout this piece to show the difference confidence makes in a statistical manner.

Works Cited

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Denizet-Lewis, Benoit. The Man behind Abercrombie & Fitch. 26 Sept. 2006, www.salon.com/2006/01/24/jeffries/.

Ford, Ashley C. “Tess Holliday’s Health Is None of Your Business.” SELF, Conde Nast, 26 June 2018, www.self.com/story/tess-holliday.

Gaines, Allison. Rhianna’s Savage x Fenty Fashion Shows The Power of The Body Positivity Movement. 3 Oct. 2020, www.medium.com/an-injustice/rhiannas-savage-x-fenty-fashion-shows-the-power-of-the-body-positivity-movement-adf219864e1b.

Miller, Victoria Leigh. ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Champ Amber Riley Talks Winning and Weight Loss. 28 Nov. 2013, www.news.yahoo.com/blogs/omg-tv/dancing-stars-champ-amber-riley-talks-winning-weight-131649518.html.

Phelps, Nicole. “We’re Nobody’s Third Love, We’re Their First Love”-The Architects of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Are Still Banking on Bombshells. 8 Nov. 2018, www.vogue.com/article/victorias-secret-ed-razek-monica-mitro-interview.

“Pool.” King, Shaka, director. Shrill, season 1, episode 4, Hulu, 15 Mar. 2019.

Salam, Maya. “Why ‘Radical Body Love’ Is Thriving on Instagram.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 June 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/style/body-positive-instagram.html.

“That’s So Not Raven.” McNamara, Sean, director. That’s So Raven, Disney Channel, 9 Apr. 2004.