Ah, that joke never gets old.

First of all, let me just reveal two Truths that I know exist out here in the Body Acceptance Realm. 

Truth 1: Everyone, no matter their gender, size, body type, race, ethnicity, height, etc. deserves to love and feel comfortable and secure in their body.

Truth 2: Everyone, no matter their gender, size, body type, race, ethnicity, height, etc. experiences challenges when it comes to accepting and feeling comfortable and secure in their body.

And I do mean everyone. 

Here’s where it gets fuzzy: social media (obviously). 

With the rise of social media influencers, and influencers who make their way into the throngs of people who use social media as a platform to advocate for self love and body acceptance and share their journeys, we may see a phenomenon called the “thinfluencer.” 

What am I talking about?

Look, for every influencer who’s using an app to smooth out their cellulite and shrink their waist, there’s another one who is contorting their body to give the appearance of rolls, back fat, cellulite and more in an attempt to relate to folks who experience all of that in their own reality.

But here’s the thing: it’s not as helpful as they think it is. 

Social media can be great for so many reasons, and in the body acceptance community, I think it’s a great tool to connect with pages and people who can inspire you to accept and love yourself. I know that for me, being more and more active on social media and engaging with self-love content from users globally has helped me an enormous amount when it comes to my own body acceptance journey. 

But when I see photos of influencers who bend and hunch over to give their body the appearance of “tummy rolls,” that’s when the annoyance sets in.

The captions are usually, “It’s okay for your belly to look like this, we’re all beautiful” or something of that ilk. 

And honestly, that message is true, at its core. Can’t argue with the sentiment. It IS okay to have belly rolls or back fat or cellulite. No dispute there. The spirit, in this case, is extremely willing.

But the flesh? I’m not so sure. 

Let’s look at myself as an example, since, as we all know, everything is ALWAYS about me. 

I am consistently very vocal about the way my body looks: I’m bigger on the bottom, with wider hips, thicker thighs, and bigger calves (and, honestly, big ole feet, but hey. I’m 6’3”, and you know what they say about big feet, don’t you?).

I have, since high school, struggled with having cellulite on my butt and thighs. It doesn’t matter what kind of lighting I’m standing in, what I’m wearing, how I’m posing, none of it. I will always have that cellulite. It’s a part of me. 

So when I see pictures of thin influencers who are sitting or editing their photos to make the details of their cellulite more prominent, that annoys me a little bit. I get a “stay in your lane” attitude, and I can’t really pinpoint exactly where it comes from.

Because, hey, at least it’s a photo of an influencer bringing awareness to the fact that we all have cellulite and should embrace it, right?

…right?

Again, I’m not so sure. 

I see it happen a lot, but the most common appearance of this trend is with influencers and their embracing of their “bellies,” which usually are fairly flat when the influencer is standing normally, but they hunch and bend so that it looks like they have rolls.

Normalizing body fat is good, right? It shouldn’t matter who’s doing it, right? 

Here’s my issue with that.

People in bigger bodies are looked at differently because they are big. Fatphobia is so ingrained in our society that many of us with thin privilege don’t even realize that it’s happening. 

For someone in a thin body to share “their experiences” (such as having “belly rolls”), it kind of underlines the societal view of bigger bodies in a negative light. It illustrates the concept that even if you’re promoting body acceptance, it’s only palatable if you’re thin or midsize. 

Cue the squeezing and hunching and twisting to show the rolls and cellulite that people in bigger bodies carry with them always, not just for a hyper-posed Instagram “body acceptance” photoshoot. 

And as for me? I’m still trying to find my way and my voice in the body acceptance movement, just like many of us are. I am a midsize woman with thin privilege (meaning that I am not treated differently or in a more negative/judgmental way because of my weight).

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a voice when it comes to sharing my experiences on my self-love journey. Of course I do, and what I say can be relevant and relatable to lots of people. 

But acknowledging boundaries in my experiences is a big part of that journey. Sure, I can be insecure about my body and want to share what I’m going through, but there’s a level of self-awareness that I am trying to develop that says that maybe, just maybe, someone else is more qualified to speak about certain topics than I am.

When I call it a “journey,” I’m really not trying to be cringey. It really IS a journey, because there are ups and downs and learning experiences around every turn. 

I’m going to keep Truth 1 and Truth 2 in my mind moving forward, but here’s something else I can do (and that WE ALL can do):

Uplift voices of people in those marginalized bodies. The ones who are treated differently in society because of their bigger bodies. The ones who don’t have thin privilege. I think all of us (and I do mean ALL of us) have experiences that we can all relate to, and all of those experiences are relevant. 

And as for the thinfluencers who are trying to capitalize on an experience that they haven’t really had? I’m gonna just hit them with a big, hairy eye roll and move along with my day, because when it comes to body acceptance, I know I’ve got a lot of my own work to do.