Do celebrities who have built careers advocating for body positivity owe their audiences an explanation when they abandon it in pursuit of thinness? It’s a question that, in various forms, has been raised online in recent months.

A few years ago, I would have said a resolute no. Someone’s body is only their business, and it is the systems we live in that are at fault. But then the rise of semaglutide injections happened, where the rich and famous had first access, and dozens of celebrities lied about taking it. The moral lines blurred a little, with worrying unregulated access, black market sales and a shortage for the people who actually need it to treat diabetes. We had our first semaglutide injection-related deaths in the UK last year. As entire red carpets and runways shrank last year, my stance wobbled a little. Now, I find myself internalising this debate in my own mirror.

Recently, I’ve lost a little bit of weight. It’s an insignificant amount for anyone not inhabiting my body. I have been focusing more on fitness and my diet after a recent PCOS diagnosis, and a side effect of this has been weight loss. During these last several months, I have been managing some conflicting feelings: I have written about body image, diet culture and patriarchal beauty standards for almost a decade. Is it hypocritical of me to now lose weight? Can I do so in a way that is body positive, or body neutral, at least? 

Most, if any, of the people who read my work won’t care about what I do with my body. So, why am I thinking about this? In two words: Remi Bader. Remi Bader is an online creator who, up until about a year ago, focused mainly on plus-size fashion content. She filmed clothing hauls which were hooked around her being a US size 16. Then, she lost a lot of weight. From the outside, it appeared rapid. For months, there was speculation that she was on Ozempic. Some people were upset, feeling that she’d turned her back on the plus-size community she’d built her following around.

After almost a year of speculation, Bader addressed her weight loss, talking candidly about her experience getting a surgery called Single Anastomosis Duodenal Switch (SADI) – a procedure which promotes weight loss and improves metabolic health conditions – on Khloe Kardashian’s podcast. A few months later, she expanded on this in an essay for Nylon, attempting to set boundaries with her followers. “Today, I am no longer in a place where I want my body and the status of my physical health to be the main topic… for right now, it feels best for me to put myself and my mental health first.” The essay had the opposite effect, and many former fans dug their heels in more. 

These feelings of betrayal are widespread right now in plus-size communities. Fat people have barely any representation in the media and Hollywood, and now the few people we did have are assimilating. And this is the crux of the tricky feelings I’ve been harbouring. I, too, have felt a pang of sadness when seeing a favourite plus-size celebrity suddenly and dramatically lose weight. It’s even harder when someone has built their platform on the back of body positivity. Is there a duty to remain transparent when that image changes?

“For me personally, I had feelings about this in relation to Mindy Kaling, who always seemed unapologetic about her lovely shape. Now she looks so thin,” says Laura*, a writer and artist from Norfolk. While Laura feels conflicted and uncomfortable about judging other women for their bodies and choices, she struggles with what she feels is an “uphill battle” to combat fatphobia. “I see it in my local Facebook groups, non-stop questions, tips and advice on losing weight. In real life, it’s all I hear around me, and it’s so disheartening. I often feel like unless women in larger bodies – who are well known with big platforms – show up as themselves without the need to conform, then everyone else is going to feel that pressure to conform as well.” 

Our overt focus on these individuals, who we do not know and who often are simply fat and visible, and therefore have body positivity labels thrust upon them, is not where our energy over the rise of fatphobia should be focused. Viren Swami, Professor of Social Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University, whose research focuses on the psychology of body image, says it is this emphasis on individuals and the choices they make about their bodies that is at the core of the issue. “I think when we use ‘body positive movement’, it implies there is an audience that can hold someone else accountable. But it’s not a political movement in that sense. They’re not like MPs. We don’t vote for them. We don’t tell them you go off and become our voice,” he says.

We are not entitled to transparency when plus-size celebrities lose weight, but you also do not need me or anyone else to give you permission to feel upset when they do.

These people, like Bader and celebrities like Adele and Lizzo, have faced blame and criticism throughout their whole careers. When they are plus-size, they are subjected to fatphobic trolling, then when they lose weight, they are criticised for succumbing to the pressures to be thin. “It’s this constant game of blaming individuals for choices that are often deeply rooted in structural problems,” says Swami. Ultimately, he believes what’s missing from conversations around this is fascism. “It is at the root of what’s intensifying the current wave of fatphobia and oppressive beauty standards.” He says that although there was always an undercurrent of fatphobia and hateful attitudes towards larger bodies, for a while, as a society we weren’t allowed to openly say it. Now, “fascism is bringing back conversations about how we should all hate our bodies.”

So, does someone like Bader owe anyone details of her private journey with her body? No. But would more honesty from public figures opting to take weight-loss drugs or undergo surgery be beneficial, especially when they’ve historically aligned themselves with plus-size creative spaces? Potentially, yes. Now, more than ever, we need mainstream body positivity, neutrality, and fat acceptance.

We are not entitled to transparency when plus-size celebrities lose weight, but you also do not need me or anyone else to give you permission to feel upset when they do – that’s fine, you can do that (ideally privately and not in their comment section). What I would encourage you to do, and it’s what I am trying to do myself, is channel my upset into action: looking back at the fat acceptance movement and getting inspiration from how they mobilised, and their radical roots, and using that to work against body fascism. Shouting at Remi Bader in TikTok comments is not going to change anything. She did not create the system she, and all of us, feel crushing pressure from. I understand why plus-size celebrities are losing weight, if I were in their shoes, I probably would too. More than ever the body positivity movement needs to become what it has always claimed to be: a movement. One rooted in community action and politics, not celebrity.