Meghan Trainor - a young, fairly talented, up-and-coming artist has emerged within the past few years, writing popular hit songs like “All About That Bass”, “Lips are Moving”, and “No”. Meghan Trainor has claimed that she is a woman that advocates for body positivity- which is the idea of promoting all types of bodies, not just the ones that we see in the Victoria’s Secret catalogues. However, in many of her songs, Meghan Trainor promotes more curvy, thicker bodies by putting down girls that would classify themselves as "thin". Some of her most recent lyrics includes statements like “Yeah, it's pretty clear, I ain't no size two but I can shake it, shake it, like I'm supposed to do” and “I'm bringing booty back, go 'head and tell them skinny bitches that”. In a sense, it is encouraging girls with a little more meat to their bones to feel comfortable in their own skin and proud of their bodies, but this is at the detriment of telling thinner girls that they should feel ashamed because they do not have large behinds. Defining skinny girls as "bitches" for simply being skinny supports this idea that we should judge women based on their external image; rather than their personality and character. Meghan, in many of her songs, disqualifies thinner females from her definition of beauty. Meghan believes that she is promoting acceptance and self-love for everyone, but in fact, she is only promoting this message to curvier girls, while skinny-shaming petite women. Not only has Meghan promoted these ideas in her own lyrics, but she has also vocalized her controversial ideas about thinner girls in the media. She was recently interviewed and was asked about her thoughts of eating disorders, where she gracefully responded with:
“I wasn’t strong enough to have an eating disorder…I tried to go anorexic for a good three hours. I ate ice and celery, but that’s not even anorexic. And I quit. I was like, ‘Ma, can you make me a sandwich? Like, immediately,”
The mere fact that Meghan believes that having an eating disorder indicates strength is simply ignorant; having an eating disorder is not a choice in most cases. Eating disorders are a form of mental illness and to associate strength with often involuntary actions demonstrates that she knows nothing about the pain that many anorexic/bulimic people deal with. And to state that she attempted to be anorexic for five minutes and couldn’t is down-right offensive. I understand that Meghan was not maliciously trying to attack people who struggle with eating disorders, however, by over-simplistically glorifying eating disorders, she is endorsing this idea that eating disorders are healthy and that is not okay.
I understand that Meghan is not ill-intended when saying things like this. I truly believe that she internally supports all body images, however, by putting down thinner women she is stressing that body positivity is exclusive to only curvier women, while skinnier women should be ashamed of what they have to offer. I believe that Meghan does this because she falsely assumes that thinner women have a sense of acceptance. I believe that she thinks thinner women are often more socially accepted in many cases, so that putting thinner woman down will do little harm. As a thinner woman, I still have trouble feeling comfortable in my own body. I still have days where I wake up and criticize every part of myself and even believe that sometimes I am too big. Ultimately, most thinner women have trouble with self-acceptance as well. With all of this, I do not believe that our culture should advertise Meghan Trainor as a spokeswoman for body positivity, merely because she does not promote all body types in her words or actions.
