Posts tagged Voluptuous

Tumblr, a microblogging platform, is used to post pictures, videos, and text of just about everything.  There are currently 77 million blogs on Tumblr with users posting anything from fashion trends to travel experiences to fitness tips.  Tumblr allows its users to express themselves in a community-like online atmosphere, but is that leading to a population of girls with unhealthy body image or even eating disorders?

Tumblr, like many blog-hosting sites, uses a tag system that helps users find exactly the kind of blogs they’re looking for by simply searching a key word.  Although this can be helpful in most cases, it can be very dangerous and triggering if used incorrectly.  By searching terms like “thinspo” (short for “thinspiration” or thin inspiration) or “proana/promia” (short for pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia) girls can be overwhelmed with images of too thin models, fasting and purging updates, and promotion of a negative body image.

This trend has become so popular that tags aren’t even necessarily needed to find these types of blogs; if you follow any fashion or fitness blogs, chances are you will be redirected to one of these “thinspo” blogs eventually by scrolling through your Dashboard.

The a fair question is why are these types of blogs allowed to remain active on the site?  According to Tumblr’s Community Guidelines, they aren’t supposed to be.  “Don’t post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-harm. This includes content that urges or encourages readers to…embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders,” the guidelines state. “We aim to sustain Tumblr as a place that facilitates awareness, support and recovery, and to remove only those blogs that cross the line into active promotion or glorification of self-harm.”

But really the question is why is this what girls are aspiring to be?  Unhealthy, sickly looking, and filled with self-loathing?  We need to lift each other up and become a generation of strong, smart, creative, healthy women at every size.  That starts with us.

The lack of healthy sized girls in the modeling and entertainment industry is overflowing into the blogosphere and there are a multitude of very thin fashion bloggers.  However, there is a market for curvy, healthy-sized fashionistas.  Some blogs we love: TheCurvyBlogger, curvygirlchic, Healthycurvyfitgirl.

If you have a Tumblr blog, use it!  Speak out about the importance of a healthy body image and loving your Perfectly Unperfected self!  I encourage you to flag the content to get these harmful, discouraging blogs deleted when you see one of these “thinspo” or “proana/mia” blogs on your Dashboard.