The Ongoing Battle for Body Positivity: Balancing Health and Self-Love

Abstract

[Name] [Instructor Name] ENG 280 10 April 2024 Paper 3 Annotated Bibliography Prestige Press Sources: Ellin, A. (2020, May 7). Fighting fat discrimination, but still wanting to lose weight. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/well/eat/fat-acceptance-weight-loss-body-positive.html The New York Times is a well-known daily newspaper and website. They have an Ad Fontes rating of 42 with a -7.91 lean to the left. Abby Ellin has been an independent journalist for over 20 years. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College, in Boston. Abby Ellin has been writing for The New York Times since the 1990s and she covers an array of topics in her writing. This particular article was published on May 7, 2020 so it is a few years old, but it’s still relevant because this article touches on topics we as a society are still dealing with. This article discusses the consensus on wanting to lose weight, but still supporting the body positivity movement. We hear from women who are overweight and wanting to lose weight, but not wanting to be ashamed from the movement. This article also contains the opinions of multiple health experts in the medical field. These medical professionals are more interested in making sure your body is healthy and the feeling of happiness will follow after. This article shows more of the conservative/right side of the matter, however it’s definitely not an extreme view from the right side. This article focuses less on loving yourself as you are now, but more on having a healthy body. This article will help me write my paper because it shows just how many different opinions can be had on this topic. For example, to be able to hear from medical professionals who study these topics is very valuable to me in writing this paper. The medical opinions will help me discover just why people are so against the body positivity movement. It’s not just a black and white topic. Yeboah, S. (2020, May 30). Body positivity: Why the work is far from finished. British Vogue. https://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/article/body-positivity-movement Vogue UK is a British magazine and website based in London with its first article published back in 1916. It has an Ad Fontes scare of 38.94 with a left lean of -11.03. This article was published by Stephanie Yeboah who is a freelance writer who I would consider an expert on this topic because she has been a part of the body positivity movement since 2014 and published a book about fat liberation. Stephanie has also won 3 awards in the past, one for ‘Blogger of the Year’ in 2019, one for “Trendsetter of the Year” in 2020, and “Fashion Writer of the Year” in 2020. This article talks about how in current media we have a lot more representation for bigger bodies. Whereas if you go back 10 years this type of representation was non-existent. This article also touches on how companies on social media took the movement in a completely different direction. These big companies were only showcasing these certain women with an ideal plus size body and not normal everyday plus size bodies. The ideal plus size body is an hourglass body and that’s not very common for plus size people. When big companies started doing this the body positivity movement was no longer a movement for every body, but another movement to make certain people insecure. This article leans more to the left side as a whole because the opinions are on the side of the feelings of people and not with the health of bodies. This article was published to inform people that the work of the body positivity movement is far from over. We are just getting started in making progress. I’m going to use this article to combat the opinion that we have plus size representation already and we don’t need more because this representation is not true representation. Rosin, H. (2023, September 28). Could ozempic derail the body-positivity movement?. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2023/09/after-ozempic/675479/ The Atlantic is an American magazine and website that features many articles varying on themes. They have an Ad Fontes score of 38.44 with a left lean of -8.69. Hanna Rosin is currently a senior editor at the Atlantic and the host of Radio Atlantic, a radio show put out through The Atlantic. Hanna Rosin has also been a long time writer of The Atlantic since 2012 and also published a book, The End of Men. The book goes on to talk about the fall of Men in positions of power around the world, but particularly in the United States. The article I have cited here talks about how the medicine, Ozempic, might hurt the progress of the body positivity movement. Ozempic is a prescription drug mainly used by diabetic patients, but has gained popularity since its side effects cause weight loss. In this article Rosin talks with Olga Khazan, an award winning writer for The Atlantic. Olga Khazan has also written for the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and Forbes. This conversation covers where the dieting phad started and why it started. The purpose of the article is to explain where we have been as a society and where we seem to be going. For example, it explains how WeightWatchers started in the 1960s and how it is basically non-existent now. This article does a good job in showing that the body positivity movement has been around for a long time and isn’t just a random phad that popped up. This article leans to the left throughout because we are on the side of the body positivity movement. Never in this article are either writers trying to undermine the movement. This article is going to help me write my paper because it’s useful seeing just how fast society will switch their opinions on the body positivity movement once they have a miracle weight loss drug. Did they really love themselves when they were fat, or did they just put on a brave face waiting for this miracle drug to come around? Network, T. L. (2022, March 31). What students are saying about how social media affects their body image. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/learning/what-students-are-saying-about-how-social-media-affects-their-body-image.html The New York Times is a well-known daily newspaper and website. They have an Ad Fontes rating of 42 with a -7.91 lean to the left. This article was composed by The Learning Network, which is a part of The New York Times website. The Learning Network first started in 1998 and offered lesson plans, news quizzes, crosswords, and other materials every weekday. I chose this article specifically because of the amount of different opinions in this article. I’ve never seen an article like this where you get to hear the opinion of teenagers on display like this. This article gives the opinions of these teenagers regarding how they feel about their body and how society makes them feel about their body. I trust this article because The Learning Network took their time to curate all of these thoughts and opinions and present us with a wide range of thoughts. This article doesn’t feel like it’s leaning in any certain direction because it’s more of allowing you to form your own opinion on the topic and that's another reason I chose it. I would say this article is accurate because everyone has a different opinion on the body positivity movement and how they view their own body. And that’s exactly what this article is doing, letting us hear from the masses. The purpose of the article is to show how teenagers are dealing with social media, but more specifically in the way social media is making them feel about their bodies. This article will be very useful in helping me write my paper because I will use all of these opinions and thoughts to help shape the part of my paper that talks about the youth. I’m going to have a section of my paper that talks about why the body positivity movement is important for the youth to see. Expert Sources: Marlow, M. L., & Shiers, A. F. (2011). Optimal Weight. Cato.org. https://www.cato.org/regulation/summer-2011/optimal-weight The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C. The Cato Institute was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch. The Cato Institute has an Ad Fontes score of 40.60 with a slight lean to the right with a 6.02. Michael L. Marlow is currently a professor of economics at California Polytechnic State University. Marlow is also an affiliated senior scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He received a BA from George Washington University and a PhD from Virginia Tech, both in economics. Alden F Shiers is also a professor of economics at California Polytechnic State University. This article was published in the summer of 2011 so it is over a decade old. However, it is still relevant because we still deal with obesity troubles in the United States. Michael L. Marlow is credible because one of research interests is public health. He is also known for opposing government regulation of unhealthy foods and beverages. Marlow believes this does not stop obesity, but targets the obese. Alden F. Shiers is credible because he has written many articles about weight issues or obesity issues in the United States. Most of these articles were written with Michael L. Marlow. I know the information in this article is accurate because their article contains 40 sources. The purpose of this article is to explain how the government is trying to come up with a plan to combat obesity in the United States, but also show that their answers might not be the right ones. This article leans to the left even though The Cato Institute leans a little to the right. This article does a great job in breaking down just why people are gaining weight and is it considered a bad thing? I’m using this article for my paper because it fights the idea that obesity is slowly killing us all that the right side tends to believe. According to this article, obesity rates have actually leveled from the year 1999. Williams, J. P. (2020, February 3). The great body-acceptance debate. https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-02-03/body-positivity-weight-bias-and-the-battle-for-a-healthy-life U.S. News & World Report is an American media magazine that publishes news, consumer advice, rankings, and analysis. U.S. News & World Report launched in 1948 and has been active to this day. They have an Ad Fontes rating of 44.02 with a slight lean to the left with -2.28. Joseph P. Williams joined the U.S. News & World Report in 2014 as an editor and writer in the News section, covering national news, politics and the U.S. Supreme Court. Williams now writes for the Healthiest Communities section of the online magazine. Williams also graduated from the University of Richmond and was awarded a Nieman Fellowship by Harvard University in 1995 to study race and the judicial system. This article was published on February 3, 2020 so it is a little over 4 years old. Even though it is 4 years old, I still believe it to be relevant because these are problems we still face today as a society. This article is accurate because...