WTF is Body Neutrality: An Honest Chat with Hannah Baker

I was scrolling Instagram one day when I found an Instagram story from my good friend Hannah Baker. Her story was discussing the difference between body positivity and body neutrality. I had never heard of body neutrality and I was instantly intrigued. I find the topic so interesting and had never heard of it until that day, so naturally I decided to do a whole post to learn more about it.

Hannah Baker is a fitness instructor teaching Pilates, yoga and classes in Chicago. We met one Sunday over iced coffee and hot chocolate to chat more about body neutrality. While she is not an expert in the topic, she does provide interesting insight on it.

According to Hannah, body neutrality is the idea that you accept your body for how it is factually and functionally. In other words, rather than hating your body or loving your body, as per body positivity, you accept it as is. You don’t force yourself to love your body, you just see it as a fact of life. It stems from the understanding that having people love their body in all aspects is sometimes unrealistic. It’s easier to meet in the middle – not hate, not love, but neutrality. Here’s an article from Huff Post with more on the specifics of body neutrality.

Hannah said, “It was difficult to go from a place of hating my body to fully loving my body; to bridge that gap felt like an unattainable feat (especially in the early stages of healing my relationship with my body). Instead I was introduced to the concept of body neutrality. I could respect my body and accept it for what it was-neither good or bad-just a body. I could switch my focus to function rather than aesthetic-it is simply a vehicle in which I am able to live my life. Would it be wonderful if I loved my body and felt positive about it everyday? Absolutely. Is it realistic? Not really. The goal for me is to focus less on my body so I have more energy to focus on my relationships, goals, and live a more present and fulfilling life.“

This concept is mind-blowing for me as it goes against most of the language out there about bodies. I see most articles or Instagram posts either promoting diet culture or promoting loving your body, whereas this is the concept of merely accepting and not forcing yourself to feel a certain way about your body.

As Hannah describes, body neutrality is a work in process since our society is heavily rooted in diet culture, fatphobia, and upholding unrealistic standards of an ideal body. I asked her about how it presents itself in her food and fitness, she explains that she has felt freedom in practicing body acceptance and educating herself on a “Health at Every Size” approach to wellness. It has freed herself in some ways. For fitness, it is simply about the intention behind the workout. If she is working out for the feeling of being strong or because it feels good, then she works out. She celebrates her body through movement. If her intention for exercise is motivated by the desire to compensate for what she ate or change her body, she takes a step back and reconsiders. In terms of food, body neutrality does not label foods as morally superior. In many instances in today’s culture, a salad is considered morally good and a donut is morally bad, for example. Therefore, people who eat salads are almost put in a more superior light than those that eat a donut. In body neutrality, all foods are considered part of a healthy diet and are not weighed by a moral scale.

As we chatted more about this topic and sipped our drinks, I came to realize that body neutrality fits with how I view food and fitness. It’s about the intention behind how you move and how you eat. It’s freeing yourself from viewing food and fitness as moral acts, but rather functioning facts of life.

For more information on this topic, Hannah recommends checking out @thebecomingproject (@thebecomeproject)on Instagram, as well as @body_peace_liberation @i_weigh