Body Positivity: Women-Owned Businesses Embrace the Need for Change

By Lisa J. Bunin, PhD, June 25, 2024
BraLisa Co-Founder & CEO

Body positivity is a movement1 that encourages acceptance and appreciation of all bodies, regardless of gender, size, shape, skin color, features, markings, age, or ability. It’s about dismantling unrealistic beauty standards that have been imposed on all of us for far too long.

In recent years, women entrepreneurs around the world have been at the forefront of the body positivity movement. They are creating businesses that celebrate diversity and empower people to feel good in their skin.

At BraLisa, we create comfortable bras designed to make women feel relaxed and confident in all they do. Our bras are made of organic cotton fabric, without the poky wires and rough seams that can cause discomfort and irritation.

A comfortable bra can play a big role in body positivity. When you feel good in what you’re wearing, it shows. You stand tall and radiate confidence.

Of course, body positivity is about more than just feeling good in a bra. It’s about challenging the idea that there is only one ideal body type. It’s about embracing our unique shapes and sizes and celebrating what makes us different. It’s about feeling good about how you choose to show up for yourself and others. For bras, it’s about prioritizing comfort over trying to live up to commercialized beauty standards.

Women entrepreneurs are leading the way in this movement by creating products and services that cater to a wide range of body types. They are also using their platforms2 to promote body positivity and self-love.

Here are a few tips for embracing body positivity:

  • Surround yourself with positive people who support and uplift you.
  • Focus on your strengths and what you love about your body.
  • Celebrate your individuality.
  • Wear clothes that make you feel good.
  • Unfollow social media that makes you feel bad about yourself.
  • Tune into what your body needs in terms of movement, rest, socialization, alone-
    time, hunger, thirst, fullness, etc.

Being body positive3 is a choice people make every day. However, it’s unrealistic to be completely positive about every aspect of one’s body all the time. Some proponents of body neutrality argue against the need to always value one’s body positively. Instead, they advocate for non-judgmental body acceptance, focusing on the body’s functionality rather than its appearance. This approach encourages people to appreciate and accept their bodies without any aesthetic evaluation.

In both approaches, surrounding yourself with positive influences can help you learn to respect your body for all that it is and does to support you.

Together, we can create a world where everyone feels good about themselves, no matter what they look like.

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  1. Palumbo, Jennifer, “The Body Positive Movement Encourages Inclusion, Not Obesity,” accessed June 19, 2024, Forbes online, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferpalumbo/2022/05/12/how-the-body-positive-movement-doesnt-encourage-obesity-but-inclusion/. ↩︎
  2. Body Positivity, accessed June 19, 2024, Psychology Today online, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/body-positivity ↩︎
  3. Karoll, Carolyn. “Moving Beyond Dichotomies About our Bodies: Navigating body neutrality and positivity,” Psychology Today online, accessed June 25, 2024  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/eating-disorder-recovery/202312/moving-beyond-dichotomies-about-our-bodies ↩︎