The Student Room Group

Tess Holliday covers Cosmo to send "important body positivity message"

Plus-size model Tess Holliday graces the cover of Cosmo's September issue, to send an important message of body positivity. The model start the campaign #effyourbeautystandards in response to online trolls.

You can read more on the story here

I think she look incredible!

What do you make of this? Should there be more diversity in magazines? Would you like to see a male cover like this?

Scroll to see replies

She is beautiful but morbid obesity should not be encouraged. Why can't the fashion industry promote healthy body types instead of the extreme ends of both spectrums?
My god she looks terrible (but she does have an abnormally pretty face for someone so large). Morbid obesity is not attractive.
How is this an improvement on heroin chic?
Morbid obesity isn't something to promote. I smoke, but if I saw a model smoking on a magazine I'd be outraged as it sets a bad example and glorifies an unhealthy lifestyle just like Tess Holliday's pic glorifies being unhealthily overweight.
"If I saw a body like mine on this magazine when I was a young girl, it would have changed my life"

maybe you would have seen what you were going to look like in 20 years and stopped eating.

---

Body positivity is nothing but dangerous nonsense driven by people who want to rid themselves of the guilt they feel for their own mistakes, coupled by people who are to afraid to speak harsh-truths so are happy to pretend everything is ok.
It is one thing to accept your body while trying to live a healthier lifestyle. That kind of body positivity should be promoted, as self-hatred isn't good for one's mental health. However, that is not the same as being clearly unhealthy but claiming that your lifestyle does not require any changes.

I hear about Victoria's Secret models on extreme diets and it's disturbing. I understand why people think that such diets should not be promoted and are harmful especially to young women. However, this nation has a growing problem with obesity, and telling people that it's fine and that they should just carry on eating what they want is equally harmful.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-45354696

What a load of tosh. Pathetic, self-righteous waffle.

The article, however, beautifully sums up how utter shite the ‘progressive’ movement is.
Reply 8
Avatar for ilem
ilem
17
It's funny how there are very few, if any at all, obese blokes complaining about how it's society's fault that their morbidly obese bodies are considered unattractive. Seems to me there are some entitlement issues at play here.
There’s definitely a difference between “plus size” and overweight to point it’s unhealthy, but I don’t think we can judge which one someone is, just by looking at a picture of them. However, Tessa is size 26. Which is obviously overweight

Edit: it’s also possible (and probably more common in teens) to be so skinny, to a point it’s unhealthy. Where self harming is so prominent nowadays, it is important to make girls feel like their (healthy) bodies are beautiful
(edited 5 years ago)
the only thing plus sized women need is a diet
Less pies?
If the idea is that we should be encouraging people to be happy for who they are, rather than trying to aspire to be what social media or the fashion industry says, then we do need more diversity in the sizes of models used. And that means covering all size ranges, those skin, large, in between. It's only through continued usage that we'll eventually reach a point when a model's size won't matter.

That said, I can see the arguments for potentially glamorising unhealthy body weights. Ultimately I think what models are used in the fashion industry, someone is going to be upset.
So it's ok to shame skinny models, but being obese is fine? Disgusting and should not be telling young girls it's ok to be fat, unless you want CVD in your early teens.
Absolute crap. I mean this is encouraging people to be fine being overweight and at risk of developing conditions which lead to an earlier death. I mean I am overweight quite considerably and I know that my body is not healthy, I am losing weight and if I read something like this and was really naive and believed that my body is good then I would not be where I am today. I mean really how stupid do you have to be to say that your body is ok when you are severely overweight and at risk.
As someone who is by no means skinny, I think that models like Tess Holliday exploit the whole 'progressive body positivity' movement as they gain jobs purely because of their size. In this sense, she is profiting on the media's aims to seem progressive by promoting extremes.

Instead we should be promoting the idea that the average, healthy body can be beautiful. It is models like this that forge a divide between fat shamers and the pretensiously virtuous progressives. From my experience, fat shaming only leads to comfort eating, people become destructive when upset. Fat shamers should learn some basic psychology. Disregarding obesity only leads to health problems. Progressives should learn some basic biology.
Original post by MrDystopia
If the idea is that we should be encouraging people to be happy for who they are, rather than trying to aspire to be what social media or the fashion industry says, then we do need more diversity in the sizes of models used. And that means covering all size ranges, those skin, large, in between. It's only through continued usage that we'll eventually reach a point when a model's size won't matter.

That said, I can see the arguments for potentially glamorising unhealthy body weights. Ultimately I think what models are used in the fashion industry, someone is going to be upset.


Not putting yourself down for being fat seems to be the message behind this. As in, 'Don't consider yourself ugly and worthless because you're fat'.

This isn't the same thing as promoting unhealthy bodies/diets but I can see how someone can get that impression.

Ideally I think body positivity and healthy lifestyles should be encouraged in unison.
If I had seen bodies like this in the media framed in a positive light, and my parents had done too, there is no way I would have been raised with the disordered view of food and my body that I have now.

It's not about encouraging people to be fat, no one looking at this has gone "wow, I want to be like that", but body diversity encourages fewer people to hate themselves for who they are and allows them to approach their diet and lifestyle from a more balanced perspective with less pressure.
I had watched this on the news this morning when they were interviewing Tess. I really don't agree with this. It continues to baffle me. While having "skinny/slim" models on magazine covers or being continuously promoted by the media may promote eating disorders and/or self esteem issues, having this overweight woman is NOT the answer. This just promotes complacency.
There needs to be a middle ground; an average body, some stretch marks here and there? That is one of the bodies that I can get behind. But you cannot go from one extreme to the other and call it "body positivity."
(edited 5 years ago)
'This is what plus-sized women have needed'

my first thoughts were

weight loss pills?
a diet?
exercise?
new incentive to loose weight?

an overweight person on the cover of a magazine did not come to mind.

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you