Recently, Joe Jonas' band, DNCE, released the video for their new single, "Toothbrush." The song itself is adorable, discussing that moment of true commitment: leaving your toothbrush at your partner's place. What fans expected was a video looking into the intimate moments between a newly formed couple. This includes a certain expectation of the love interest. In most cases, this love interest has the current, "desired," body type which usually means a small waist, toned body, long hair, perfect skin, etc. The more serious music videos are the ones to showcase these body types, normally portrayed by popular models. This leaves other body types, such as the more average, to be depicted in comedy pieces, musical parodies, or the butt of the joke in rap music.

As a human being who knows she is not anywhere close to the current, "perfect," body, it's mentally exhausting to see only one type of woman constantly receiving this attention. To see that only one kind of woman is wanted, leaves a lot of us in the dark. Watching these videos back to back, the audience feels negative, and finds themselves also desiring a most likely unreachable body. This thought process leaves a permanent mark of imperfection on the women watching these videos, leading to eating disorders, body dysmorphia and other body image issues. This piece is about body positivity, so in no way is this shaming the women being popularly depicted. These women are beautiful in their own right and deserve all the praise for their hard work. However, for the women who are nowhere close to this stereotypical look, there are feelings of incompletion and misrepresentation.

However, Joe Jonas took a stand and delivered a new ideal for the stereotypical "video girl." Not saying he's a hero by any means, because it's not exactly noble to take a plus-sized model and portray her as something she already is: absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous. But this casting choice has definitely made a few sparks with the viewers. The model casted as the love interest, Ashley Graham, has recently picked up speed for her modeling, even landing herself on the cover of the iconic Sports Illustrated magazine. Just as other video girls before her, Graham is depicted as desired, delicate, wanted, sexy, beautiful, fun and ultimately intimate in this romantic setting. This is a message of body positivity and encourages women who will see this video to feel the same, as all bodies should be recognized for being normal and accepted, rather than one unreachable type: popular.

As an active participant in this popular culture of social media, music, television, models, celebrity, etc., this made a huge impression on me. The growing positive body acceptance (as well as the growing support of women's proper representation in the general media) is rising to a place of equality for both women and men.

Being older, I have now witnessed women's popular body types change three times. From athletic skinny, to overwhelmingly skinny, and now onto the desired, "Kardashian Kurvy." These ideals are always changing and always unreachable for a large portion of the population. However, with the escalation toward a more reachable and acceptable body type, there is proof of future change for total body positivity. As our culture changes from decade to decade, there will one day be a much more consistent display of different bodies.

Joe Jonas, you definitely made the right choice for your video and we couldn't be more proud.