In 2016, Precious actor Gabourey Sidibe underwent weight-loss surgery. You can do life your way.”īut Lizzo is far from the first plus-size woman in the public eye to take part in diet culture and spark passionate discourse as a result.
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You don’t have to do that to be beautiful or healthy. I fed myself greens and water and fruit and protein and sunlight. “To the people who look to me, please do not starve yourselves.
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“These things are not mutually exclusive,” she added. Lizzo eventually commented in an Instagram post, saying, “I detoxed my body and I’m still fat. Then the anti-fat crowd came bustling in, praising Lizzo for trying to get “ healthy” and saying the people who were upset were, if anything, jealous.īoth extremes projected narratives onto Lizzo’s body that she never actually took part in. Some body-positivity adherents were upset and disappointed by Lizzo, feeling betrayed that she had seemingly turned her back on body positivity. A debate unfolded about Lizzo and her body, and her actions were dissected from all sides. What came next was predictable, because it’s happened before. Whether she asked for it or not, she was the face of a movement loosely defined by loving your body no matter its size.Īnd so she had committed what some see as a cardinal offense for plus-size influencers and celebrities - giving in to and promoting diet culture. She didn’t hide, she didn’t try to cover her body in layers and “flattering” silhouettes, and her upbeat music promotes self-love. But she’s been upheld as an icon of body positivity, a woman with a larger body who moved through the world with confidence and bravado in defiance of what our culture says larger bodies are supposed to do. And she has posted about her vegan lifestyle and workouts before, so the story wasn’t totally off-brand for her.
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Lizzo didn’t say explicitly that she was trying to lose weight. She also posted day-by-day images of her body, including a final before-and-after showing a slightly slimmer profile. She uploaded videos of her drinking “beauty water” and downing vegan protein bars in a diet overseen by weight-loss expert J.J. 13, the singer Lizzo posted on her Instagram story that she had done a 10-day, smoothie-based detox.