Confessions of a Former Body Positivity Influencer

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Everyone’s talking about GLP-1s. They’ve become a game changer for losing weight and treating a spectrum of health issues. Today, 18 percent of adults say they’ve taken a GLP-1 drug, a proportion that may increase if the Trump administration makes good on its plans to lower prices for the medications. Before GLP-1s came onto the scene, body positivity was a yearslong cultural mandate — a countermovement to the toxic beauty standards and weight-loss frenzy that defined the early 2000s. But amid this current weight loss revolution, that movement is facing an existential crisis. While some body positivity advocates have embraced weight loss drugs, others have rejected them, fearing that thin is now back in and, with it, fatphobia. Some within the movement have also downplayed the health risks linked to obesity and even criticized those who choose to lose weight, prompting accusations of ignoring medical consensus. So, is it possible to love your body and still want to change it? That’s what the former body positivity influencer Gabriella Lascano argues in this Opinion Video. Recounting her journey from body positivity champion to critic, she describes how a well-intentioned movement has over time become self-destructive — with potentially fatal consequences. “I started to wonder if loving myself at any size had become an excuse to ignore how big I was getting,” Lascano says. But there is a middle ground, she argues. One that doesn’t require a return to the early 2000s but a move toward what she considers true body positivity. --------------------- More from Opinion Video: https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/opinion-video Subscribe: http://bit.ly/U8Ys7n