12 Songs About Body Positivity
Body positivity is a social movement that is focused on the acceptance of all bodies, regardless of size, shape, skin tone, gender and physical abilities while challenging the present-day beauty standards as an undesirable social construct. Below is a list of songs about body positivity:
1. Alessia Cara – Scars To Your Beautiful
The song is about body image directed at women. Alessia was inspired by the things that certain women go through on a daily basis in order to feel loved or in order to love themselves.
In an interview with Idolator, Cara explained the meaning of the song: Basically, that song is about body image. It’s directed at women, but I think men can relate to it as well. It’s just a song about these things that certain women go through on a daily basis in order to feel loved or in order to love themselves. I think that’s such a thing that goes on in today’s world. These weird things are instilled in us. You know? That tell us that we’re not good enough or that there’s only one kind of beauty. This song basically is contradicting that idea. It’s saying, “Well, if the world doesn’t like how you look then they should change. They should change their perspective. You don’t have to change yourself.”
2. Anne Marie – Perfect
It talks about the beauty of imperfection and rejects the idea that perfection is possible. This makes people to be more accommodating with their flaws and insecurities and be okay with being themselves.
Anne-Marie drew her inspiration after watching YouTube videos of women talking about body confidence. She shared this as her experience: I felt really empowered and just wanted to write a song that reflected that. So my co-writer Jennifer said to me, ‘Right, tell me all your insecurities about you, your body and your life in general.’ So I just wrote down everything I’m embarrassed about, all the stuff I do on my own when no one else is watching. And it all ended up going into the song.
3. Meghan Trainor – All About The Bass
This is an empowerment song about being okay with being thick. It was Meghan Trainor’s debut single that catapulted her to fame and ended up as the first and only single to reach 1 billion views as a debut single.
Meghan described the song to be about loving yourself, loving your body, loving your insecurities and having fun with it. She used the term bass to represent thickness and treble to represent the opposite. Her body is thick by nature and she is proud of it even though the expectation of modern women is a pencil-thin figure.
4. Hailee Steinfeld – Most Girls
The track has been termed as a female empowerment anthem. Hailee celebrates all kinds of girls regardless of what they choose to wear, who they choose to love and what they want to do with their lives. She sends the message that girls are strong and powerful in their own right. In an interview on the Zach Sang Show, she had this to say about the song:
It really is about not only the thought of knowing that about yourself with the way you are, but the song basically says it’s okay to want to change certain things about yourself. If you feel better with make-up on, put make-up on, take the extra time out of your day and wear it, it’s really all about “Yeah, you’re awesome the way you are.” And for me, as a young woman looking around and looking at other women and being inspired by them and finding them incredibly strong and unstoppable and smart and wanting to be like that, I think is just a real progressive way of thinking [about] this song.
5. Beyonce – Pretty Hurts
The track is a personal take on what beauty is and the impossible beauty standards in society. Many of us try to reach perfection despite the fact that beauty itself is subjective.
In the video, Beyonce plays a beauty pageant contestant who tries so hard to look flawless but still fails to achieve perfection. We then see her getting frustrated to the point of knocking down her wall trophies. This represents knocking down those beauty standards.
6. Beyonce – Brown Skin Girl
The song tells young brown-skinned girls to be proud of their skin and embrace it. Beyonce gives examples of black women who have made it in the entertainment industry such as Naomi Campbell, Kelly Rowland and Lupita Nyong’o. In her eyes, melanin serves as a source of pride to counter any criticism.
7. Jessi J – Queen
Queen is a single from Jessie J’s fourth studio album ROSE. It serves as a body-empowering anthem for women and a way to uplift them at the same time.
Jessie uses a number of women of different shapes, races, and sexualities to portray the message in the song. She had this to say about the track: It’s about the sex of being a female as well as that. Women in the industry are sexualized and are definitely treated in a certain way because of what they and their bodies look like.
8. Colbie Caillat – Try
This is a piano ballad where Colbie Caillat relates the pressures society places on women to look perfect while posing a question to the listener asking them: “do you like you?”
It also advises women not to change themselves for anyone or go the extra mile to impress or fit in.
9. Melanie Martinez – Mrs. Potato Head
The track talks about plastic surgery stating that it’s probably not worth it to start cutting and pasting since one may end up regretting the choice if things don’t turn out as planned. In an interview with Vice, Melanie had this to say about the track: I had the idea for “Mrs. Potato Head” for a long time and the whole visual I had in my head was the fact that you can pull toy pieces off the face and that could represent plastic surgery. It was not me bashing women who get plastic surgery, but more of, “Why are you doing this when you’re beautiful without it?”
10. Selena Gomez & The Scene – Who Says
This is the lead single from the album When The Sun Goes Down (2011). Selena stated that it was intended to inspire people and fire back at the “haters” especially those involved in cyberbullying. She also had this to say when speaking to E!: “I feel that girls my age tend to question themselves a lot. They tend to dress and be what other people want them to be. I feel that everyone wants to follow the trends and what’s ‘cool’ and eventually, at the end of the day when you strip all of that down, are you really proud of yourself and comfortable in your skin?”
11. Demi Lovato – I Love Me
The track is from Demi Lovato’s seventh studio album Dancing With The Devil..The Art of Starting Over. It is an empowering self-love anthem. Speaking on The Ellen Show, Demi described the main message in the song as, “You are completely whole as you are, without anybody, without substances, without this food, without whatever. Like, you are good, girl!”
12. Lizzo – My Skin
The track is from Lizzo’s 2nd album Big GRRRL Small World. It is generally about skin appreciation and love. It is also a self-celebration and accepting yourself for who you are.