Ilisha Strassler

Body positivity is not limited to race, gender, or body type.

“All About that Bass” by Meghan Trainor is currently number one in the U.S. music charts, being used as a promotion for body positivity and loving your own skin. However, looking at the lyrics, this song really isn’t as positive as it seems.

What this song does is favor one body type and put down the thinner girls, and body positivity isn’t like that. It’s about loving and accepting all different shapes and sizes, even if they are “stick figured silicone barbie dolls.” We can’t pick and choose our body, and we’re stuck with it forever.

It’s true our media focuses on the thinner types of girls, but it doesn’t give anyone the right to criticize their body. Many say that society is learning to incorporate different sizes in our media with songs like Megan Trainor’s, but the fact that we have this song represent body positivity while it clearly judges another size means they’ve learned nothing. Instead of outcasting one’s size, we need to get over the fact that everyone is different. We can’t just go and bring one group up by bringing another one down because it’ll just repeat an endless cycle of low self-esteem.

We have plus size models and the problem is that we focus on the plus size part and not the fact that they’re models. We then judge girls who weigh less than normal. We focus so much on a number that’s on a scale and not enough on someone’s personality.

“All About that Bass,” at first, seems like a wonderful song. It finally brings attention that the curvier type of girls are beautiful, a message that isn’t often said. But when you actually listen to the lyrics, it’s not so perfect. Despite judgmental lyrics towards skinnier people, people still think of this as some kind of empowering song, when empowerment doesn’t allow the judgement of anyone. There’s other ways that Trainor could have appreciated curvier girls. In truth, if Trainor would not have included just two lines – “stick figure silicone barbie doll,” and “go tell the skinny [expletive]” –  this would have been one of the greatest songs of the year.

The first step to writing a body positive song: be positive about all bodies.