Louise Thompson has gone from ‘an anxiety-ridden party girl, battling with mental health and an unhealthy relationship with eating’ to a fitness guru seemingly almost overnight.

One week she was swigging champers on TV, weeping and claiming she couldn’t remember who she’d got with the night before, and the next, she’d become wellness personified.

She’s reinvented herself as a #fitspocouple with the help of her PT boyfriend, Ryan.

And there’s no denying it, she looks incredible. Her Instagram feed is one of athletic stunts, abs and plates of perfectly curated food.


No doubt loads of women want to look like her, which is why she’s just brought out a recipe and HIIT workout book called Body Positive.



Except…loads of women aren’t happy about it.

Body positive bloggers in particular, are fuming about the title.

‘We’re currently seeing an influx of brands and celebrities jumping onto the body positivity trend and using the movement to promote diet culture, which is not what body positivity was created for,’ Stephanie Yeboah tells Metro.co.uk.

‘The movement stems from the fat positivity movement created years ago which in turn was to help celebrate and promote bodies that were seen outside of what society considered to be beautiful.’

Blogger Lottie L’Amour agrees.

‘Body positivity is for people wanting a break from the diet industry and from society that profits from the misery and self-doubt of others.’

‘Louise calling her diet and exercise book “Body Positive” is a blatant piggyback on the rise of the body positive movement, while sticking two fingers up to the very thing it was created to do – making people feel good in the skin they are in now, regardless of shape, size or weight.

What. The ever loving fuck. Is this. https://t.co/gn8mFlSlc1 — Lottie fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-L'amour (@Lottie_Lamour) November 28, 2017

‘There are lots of other terms that Louise could have used to title her book, but this is the one term that people use as an escape from the diet industry.’

Are fitness influencers hijacking the movement to make their own messages more acceptable and profitable?

‘100% yes,’ says Lottie.

‘People use body positivity to seem relevant as they’ve seen the rise of the movement over the past few years. This book is a prime example of a media team who have seen a popular phrase and used it without knowing the reason why it’s become so popular.’

In fact, Lottie thinks that using the phrase as the book’s title is ‘potentially dangerous’ as many people turn to body positivity to escape eating disorders.

This might help you understand. Your cover photo represents everything the diet industry promotes and the self hatred it causes. pic.twitter.com/P5H6w5HQed — kara (@KaraKaravuitton) November 29, 2017

‘Being body positive isn’t about changing your body to fit into society’s ideal shape, it’s about embracing who you are right now regardless of that. What Louise is doing in calling her book Body Positive is diluting this message, and encouraging people to slim into feeling good about who you are.

‘It’s entirely possible to be positive about your body without losing weight.’

There are some influencers, like Stephanie, who believe the body positive movement should be fat-body centric.



‘Seeing as the community was created from the fat positivity community, fat bodies should be the priority,’ she explains.

‘Fat people do not have enough safe spaces for us where we can celebrate and love our bodies and each time we create a new movement, it is hijacked by smaller people under the guise of “wanting to feel included”.

‘The gag is that their bodies are celebrated globally. They do not need a safe space because they are celebrated everywhere. Plus size people should be able to exist and thrive in spaces meant for us. They have pretty much ‘all lives mattered’ the movement.’

But Lottie insists that body positivity is for everyone of all shapes and sizes; the issue here isn’t the fact that Louise is slimmer and more toned than the average women.

‘What isn’t possible, or right, is that you can actively hate the size you are whilst using body positive terms. I absolutely believe that fatter or plus size people should be given a more prominent platform in this movement, however, as plus size people benefit more from having a safe space to thrive in away from relentless pressure to slim down.’

Body positivity is/was a movement that was created to celebrate bodies that were seen as outside of what is conventionally attractive. More specifically: fat bodies. Body positivity is NOT about celebrating the diet industry. — Stephanie Yeboah (@NerdAboutTown) November 29, 2017

So who does it get it right, when it comes to publishing body positive books?

Lottie says: ‘There are already lots of people with body positive books – Megan Jayne Crabbe’s book “Body Positive Power” hits body positivity on the head, as does Grace Victory’s book “No Filter” about her life growing up with an eating disorder and repairing her relationship with food.


‘Tess Holliday has also written an excellent autobiographical book about her life growing up as a fat woman. None of these books talk about dieting or losing weight, which is the right way to write about body positivity.’

Metro.co.uk has reached out to Louise for comment.

MORE: It’s time to call time on the ‘bastardisation of strength training’ we see on Instagram

MORE: Fitness star says eating carbs is the secret to her incredible body transformation

Advertisement Advertisement