It’s time for the spotlight to be shared.

Hey All, 

We hope you are having an amazing week.

We have a guest writer for our email this week. It has been written by Amy, one of our amazing  SMASH community members - you may have met her during Pride week teaching Beginners Burlesque!

As you know, SMASH London is about improving body and mind. Our fitness goals are to enjoy how our body moves, have fun while we are at it and improving our relationship with our body. Amy has been with our community since we started and her words really resonated with the SMASH London message...

Enjoy and THANK YOU AMY!

Sam and Ash

Hey guys, Amy here!

For those who don’t know me, I’m a huge advocate for body confidence and body positivity – I know, they sound like they should be synonymous but they’re not and I want to tell you where the difference lies. 

Body confidence is a one size fits all. Everyone deserves to feel comfortable in their skin, like having that feeling of putting on an outfit you feel like the tits in every day. Nobody should ever be made to feel bad for the body they have. Self-love and self-acceptance are powerful things, you’d be surprised how much more brain space you have when you’re not constantly thinking about your body. Body confidence is important, and it is truly for everyone.

Body positivity is different. It’s a movement that was born from fat acceptance and, since its origins, has spread to encompass all marginalised bodies – fat bodies, black bodies, brown bodies, disabled bodies, trans bodies and the issues that arise at each of those intersections. And it’s not just about them donning a bikini and screaming their love for their cellulite, it’s political. In the UK, a black person is five times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than their white counterparts. When fat people go to the doctors with concerns, they will be told to lose weight before they get the care they need or deserve – as was the case with Rebecca Hiles whose tumour in her bronchial tube was missed for years, ending in her left lung having to be removed, because every time she raised concerns about her breathing doctors told her to lose weight. That’s where the political nature of body positivity comes in – its belief is that everyone deserves suitable health care, access and safety regardless of who they are. It is not a trendy hashtag to use to boost followers.

So what’s the purpose of this email? Well, this week I got mad. I got angry that under body positive hashtags, I consistently see slim, white, able bodied women being praised as the head of the movement. They’re often bending to contort their skin to make “rolls” or pushing their stomach out to show that they bloat. But hunching yourself over to get a single roll on your stomach and then posting a side by side of you standing tall, roll removed, isn’t the ground-breaking post you think it is. Posts like that are saying “look, my body can be ‘disgusting’ too, but I’m able to go back into the world without having my health discussed by strangers, shop with friends knowing that they will find clothes that fit, not have to consider access to buildings, not fear being stopped by police just because I fit a description”. It’s not acknowledging a privilege; it’s silencing the people the movement is for and further stigmatising the people the movement is for. It’s unfair.

Can all people suffer with body confidence issues? Absolutely. It’s a product of the society we live in. We have billion dollar industries existing whose main purpose is to find something else that’s wrong with you so they can sell another product because, once you’ve got rid of that flaw you’ll be happy… until they find the next villain on our bodies. But feeling badly about your body and having a society which harms your body daily is very different. Body positivity isn’t about feeling positively about your body, it isn’t about “promoting obesity” (that’s a discussion for a different day) – it’s a fight for equality. For acceptance. It can be life or death for people. That’s why I got angry. So, if you fit the societal norms in any way, lift up the voices that body positivity is for – if you’re slim, listen to fat people; if you’re white, listen to POC; if you’re not disabled, listen to those who are. How can you make things more accessible for them? How can you make things safer for them? How can you be a good ally to them? Those of us with privilege, who have for so long benefitted from not being excluded from conversations, need to realise that we aren’t always going to be the focus. It’s time for the spotlight to be shared.

If you’ve got this far, thank you, I know for some people these topics can cause eye-rolls (again, we can explore that another time), it can be a new world for others, but I’m happy to discuss with anyone who wants to learn more. And below are some Instagram accounts for some of my favourite body positive accounts:

@danica_marjanovic 
@bodyimage_therapist
@spreadingunicornlove
@the_feeding_of_the_fox
@bodiposipoet
@iamdaniadriana

Thank you for reading, and thank you Sam and Ash for having me. I love you endlessly.

Amy x