Body Image, Bathing Suits, and Body Neutrality

Summer is often framed as the season of bodies: think bathing suits, beaches, and social media asking if your “summer body” is ready yet. This pressure isn't just annoying; it's harmful, especially for those in marginalized bodies. And yet, body image struggles are so normalized that it can be hard to imagine another way to relate to our bodies.

Enter: body neutrality. Body neutrality offers a path towards compassion for our bodies without the requirement to adore all of our parts. It invites us to care for our bodies without having to feel constant admiration for how they look. It’s a perspective grounded in function, dignity, and enough-ness, not appearance.

This approach aligns beautifully with the Health at Every Size (HAES) framework, a social justice movement rooted in the belief that health is multifaceted and not dependent on body weight. HAES encourages intuitive eating, joyful movement, and respectful healthcare. It challenges the evidence-light assumption that weight loss improves health outcomes and instead centers equitable, compassionate care for all bodies.

So, what do you need to know about body neutrality this summer? Read on for more info from the holistic healers at Rise and Thrive Counseling! 

1. Recognize the Systems Behind Body Shame

Before we can change how we feel about our bodies, we need to understand why we feel the way we do. Body image struggles are not personal failures; they’re the result of decades (and centuries) of conditioning from systems designed to control and divide.

Patriarchy and white supremacy both benefit from making people - especially women, people of color, and gender non-conforming folx - feel unworthy in their bodies.

Keep in mind:

• Beauty ideals in the U.S. are rooted in Eurocentric, thin, able-bodied, cisgender norms, constructed during colonialism and upheld by modern media.

• Studies show that Black, Indigenous, and other people of color experience more body surveillance and pressure to conform, yet are vastly underrepresented in “body positivity” campaigns.

• The $70+ billion diet industry profits directly from your self-doubt, promising thinness as a moral and social ideal.

• Patriarchy teaches women to shrink, to take up less space, to be "pleasing," to focus on beauty instead of agency or power. Consider why it would be beneficial to the patriarchy if you were hungry all the time.

• Racism weaponizes body image by labeling non-white bodies as deviant or excessive, further pathologizing natural body diversity.

2. Explore Intuitive Eating as a Path to Body Trust

If you've spent years in a battle with food or cycles of restriction and guilt, you’re not alone. Diet culture teaches us to distrust our bodies and moralize food choices. Intuitive Eating, developed by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, offers a research-backed alternative that focuses on attunement, satisfaction, and self-respect.

If this is the first you’re learning about intuitive eating (or you’ve fallen for the propaganda that it’s “just an excuse to eat whatever”), try the following:

• Reject the diet mentality: remind yourself that intentional weight loss often fails long-term (research shows up to 95% regain), and the cycle itself damages physical and mental health.

• Practice honoring your hunger and respecting your fullness; after all, your body knows more than a calorie app.

• Give yourself unconditional permission to eat; restriction almost always leads to fixation or bingeing.

• Separate food from morality. There is no such thing as “good” or “bad” food, only context and nourishment.

• Reconnect with satisfaction: what foods feel good physically and emotionally?

3. Move Toward Health, Not Thinness

One of the most powerful tenets of the HAES approach is that health is not dependent on weight. In fact, many of the health benefits typically attributed to weight loss (like improved blood pressure or cholesterol) can also occur through behavioral change without weight loss.

To increase healthful behaviors without a focus on weight, you can try to:

• Choose movement that brings joy or ease, not punishment. This could mean dancing, walking, stretching, swimming - whatever makes you feel in your body, not at war with it.

• Focus on function, not appearance. e.g., “I’m grateful I can carry groceries,” not “I need to tone my arms.”

• If you’re able, explore outdoor activities that connect you to nature and presence, like gardening or hiking.

• Let rest and stillness be part of health too. Rest is not laziness; it’s a basic need.

• Seek out providers and fitness spaces that align with HAES principles and respect body diversity.
  

Conclusion: Resources for Growing Body Compassion

Body neutrality and self-compassion don’t develop overnight, they’re skills we grow through learning, unlearning, and consistent kindness toward ourselves. The following books, websites, and voices offer evidence-based, justice-oriented support as you deepen your relationship with your body:

• Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon, PhD: A foundational text that breaks down the science behind weight stigma, debunks common myths, and outlines the HAES principles.
  

• Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH): Learn about HAES, find weight-inclusive healthcare providers, and access advocacy tools.
  

• The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor: A powerful, accessible, and justice-rooted invitation to divest from body shame and embrace radical self-love as an act of collective liberation.
  

• Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch: This HAES-aligned guide walks you through the 10 principles of intuitive eating to help you reconnect with body trust and food freedom.
  

• Food Psych with Christy Harrison, the Podcast: A long-running podcast featuring interviews with body liberation experts, HAES-aligned clinicians, and activists.
  

• Fearing the Black Body: the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings: A book that outlines and guides readers through how current body standards are rooted in racism.
  

• Instagram Accounts to Follow:

  • @thenutritiontea (HAES-aligned, culturally competent nutrition guidance)

  • @bodyimagewithbri (body grief + body image healing)

  • @thebodyisnotanapology (radical body love and justice)
    

Speaking of resources: if you want more holistic help, look no further than Rise and Thrive Counseling. Our holistic counselors can help address all areas of life. Reach out today to learn more. We look forward to hearing from you!