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Fiona: I think it's great – it's a big step in a good direction. We got a lot of criticism during the protest that it was a really small issue we were focusing on, but I feel like body issues are such a massive thing that you can only really get rid of one bite at a time, so this is a really good start.
Tara: Same. My Twitter was blowing up all afternoon with notifications, and the news made my day. A lot of people said we didn't make a difference, and this just proves that we did.
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Fiona: That's probably going to be a conversation that goes on for a long time. The Beach Body Ready ad was really clear-cut. It wasn't a woman having a great time on the beach; it was saying, "Look like this woman and you'll be OK." So it was quite obviously offensive, but there are a lot of others that are a lot less clear-cut.How do you deal with that?
I think the government should take advice from people who suffer from body shaming – people like plus-size bloggers – who are at the centre of it. If they did that, they could work out a definition.Tara?
Tara: I think it's going to be very hard to pinpoint what does and doesn't constitute as body shaming, because some of it can be really subtle. For example, menstrual blood is always blue in adverts, and shaving products are always seen on already-shaven legs. These things may seem little, but it matters. Don't believe me? Look at those upset over Bodyform's latest advertisement, which features actual blood.I.E. the reality.
As we continue to refuse to acknowledge or include [these things], we're essentially saying they are things that need to be hidden or got rid of. A good start would be changing the narratives of advertisements. Why can't they be more empowering? I understand people need to make a sale at the end of the day, but why should shame be the driving force here?
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Fiona: I think they're really dangerous. Like I said, a lot of people acted as if it was a trivial issue, but anorexia is the most deadly mental illness humans have. It increases your chance of death more than schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and adverts like this feed into this big monster culture that makes women feel like their bodies aren't good enough, and that they need to modify them to fit in. So it wasn't so much saying that [Beach Body Ready model] Renee Somerfield's body was wrong – because obviously it isn't – it was more trying to put out other images of what a body in a bikini looks like.And that's just one example, I suppose.
Tara: The advert was just a pin in the ocean of body shaming media out there. I completely understand if this advert doesn't bother some, but you need to listen to those it does bother. Representation is extremely important. This advert, as well as many others, suggests that the only way you can be beautiful is if you're a white, cis-hetero, able-bodied male or female. So yes, it may "just be an advert", but this shit adds up. When you grow up seeing all of this and you're constantly misrepresented, underrepresented or not represented at all, you grow up hating yourself. And if you grow up hating yourself, it can take a very long time to get out of that mind-set.When you do break free, things like this are everywhere to remind you that you're not supposed to be happy with yourself. And when it's in the magazines you read, on the screens you watch and even when you go to ride the Tube, it's incredibly suffocating and hard to ignore. You can't be surprised that so many of us struggle with body image when you're telling us we can't possibly love our bodies if we don't look a certain way. Renee Somerfield is beautiful, but I am too and so are you. The bottom line is: there is more than one way to be beautiful and it's about time the media reflected that.
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