Why body neutrality works better than body positivity

Plus more health news | Email not displaying correctly? [View it in your browser.]( [Health Matters]( [How to start practicing body neutrality]( By Annabel Gutterman Content Strategy Editor In the early 2010s, body positivity took social media by storm. I remember scrolling through Instagram and seeing posts from influencers about embracing their unedited flaws. But nearly a decade later, it seems like body positivity didn’t do much for anyone. (My feeds are now full of celebrities who are seemingly [taking Ozempic]( to lose weight.) We need to let go of the idea of body positivity and start thinking differently, writes Jessi Kneeland, author of the new book Body Neutral: A Revolutionary Guide to Overcoming Body Image Issues, in an essay for TIME. Instead of constantly celebrating our bodies, we should aim to be netural about them—a more achieveable goal. Here’s how to start: - Stop feeling like you need to embrace every dimple, jiggle, and inch. It’s unrealistic to suddenly fall in love with your entire body. - If you're feeling unhappy with your appearance, give yourself some compassion. Say your complaints out load, followed with a phrase like: “and that’s not a problem,” “and that makes sense and is OK,” or “and that doesn’t mean anything bad about me.” - Remember that if the goal is peace and acceptance, we have to work with and not against ourselves. [READ MORE]( Share This Story What Else to Read [A Skin Patch Shows Promise in Treating Kids’ Peanut Allergies]( By LAURAN NEERGAARD/AP An experimental skin patch, called Viaskin, trains allergic kids' bodies to handle an accidental bite of peanut. [Read More »]( [Portraits of Ukraine’s Wartime Mothers—and the Babies Who Turned 1 Amid Conflict]( By Yasmeen Serhan As many as 195,000 babies were born in Ukraine last year, according to the United Nations Population Fund. [Read More »]( [Are Teens Really Having Less Sex—Or Do They Just Define It Differently?]( By JOCELYN GECKER/AP The language of young lust is evolving. And the shift is not being adequately captured in national studies, experts say. [Read More »]( [How to Actually Change Someone’s Mind]( By Angela Haupt Go in calm, practice empathy, and open the door to introspection. [Read More »]( [No, Coffee and Tea Aren’t Actually Dehydrating. Here’s Why]( By Jamie Ducharme Instead, it's quite the opposite. (Originally published in 2018.) [Read More »]( AN EXPERT VOICE "What’s happening on social media right now is a black box. We don’t understand it. We need to better understand it, and we need empirical research, but it's hampered by closed application programming interfaces." —Don Grant, national advisor of healthy device management at Newport Healthcare --------------------------------------------------------------- If you were forwarded this and want to sign up to receive it daily, [click here](. Today's newsletter was written by Annabel Gutterman and Haley Weiss, and edited by Angela Haupt. [Want more from TIME? Sign up for our other newsletters.]( [Subscribe to TIME]( TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services in this email. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Connect with TIME via [Facebook]( | [Twitter]( | [Newsletters]( [UNSUBSCRIBE]( [PRIVACY POLICY]( [YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS]( TIME Customer Service, P.O. Box 37508, Boone, IA 50037-0508 Questions? Contact health@time.com Copyright © 2023 TIME USA, LLC. All rights reserved.