Investigating the behaviors of Iranian plus size bloggers (with an emphasis on the body positivity movement on Instagram).

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran

2 PH. D student of sociology, Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran

10.22034/scart.2025.140757.1470

Abstract

The body positivity movement, which has flourished in the 21st century, is trying to resist social and media pressure to establish beauty standards. This movement is based on individual identity and body acceptance with all its imperfections. One of the main trends in this movement is accepting the fat body as a reality and loving yourself while being fat. As an image-based platform, Instagram plays an important role in popularizing beauty and fitness standards. The risk of rejecting fat people or ignoring them has prompted some fat women to prevent themselves from being ignored by using Instagram. The effort of plus size bloggers is an example of the effort of the minority to raise their voice. In this research, identity theories and minority influence theory have been used. The semiotics research method was used, and selected photos from the Instagram pages of ten Iranian plus-size women bloggers were analyzed using Kress and Vanlevon's methods. The findings of the research showed that most of the bloggers have tried to use different techniques to show the normality and unwillingness to run away from the fat body in the photos. Although this positive action of bloggers helps to accept obese people in the society, it may lead to ignoring the risks of obesity or the commercial use of plus size body display.

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