Jameela Jamil's 'I Weigh' is breaking stereotypes to give a new direction to body positivity
Jameela Jamil is best known for her role as Tahani in ‘The Good Place’. The actress is pretty popular on Instagram and has a following of 2.8 million people. Also, she has always used the following to be pretty vocal about her beliefs in spreading awareness about body equality. In 2018, Jamil launched the ‘I Weigh’ movement on Instagram, a movement on body equality.
The actress has been using her lockdown days to spread some more awareness. She has been sharing her routine on ‘Quarantine Diaries’ and recently, posted a picture of herself without using changes or filters.
The 'Quarantine Diaries' is a podcast launched started by USA TODAY, where celebrities talk about their day in quarantine, discussing their routine and activities. Jamil talks about her daily routine and her work in “I Weigh”. She talks about her binge eating and binge-watching of series while being open about body image and body positivity.
The ‘I Weigh’ movement celebrates body positivity and self-worth. Jamil wants to end fat-shaming and promotes to love one-self irrespective of size, color, body or shape. According to the official site, the movement wants to explore the “social issues that stem the mental health to climate changes to the representation of the marginalized group.”
The movement is trying to break down different stereotypes in the world, they have assisted in changing global policies at Facebook and Instagram on diet and detox products shown to minors in posts that try to influence them into buying these products.
Jamil, 34, is the face and the leader of the activist movement. This all started in 2018 when she was shaken up by an image she found on Instagram featuring the Kardashian-Jenner family on which the user had written their approximate weights. She wrote a blog on her official page on the image saying, “I’m so done with seeing this and letting it pass me by. It’s so dangerous and disgusting. It’s so belittling and abusive. We are subliminally bullied all day by the magazines, the sidebar of shame, social media, and by each other. The onslaught is so aggressive that we are going to have to retaliate with 10 times the strength to undo all of the damage to the global psyche of women.”
She posted a picture of herself with all her details, including her age, weight, height, what she does. This inspired a lot of women to come forward and send Jamil their pictures with their details just like she had done. She created the ‘I Weigh’ page, uploading these pictures and that was the beginning of her activist movement.
“It feels like an online museum of self-worth,” says Jamil to Financial Times. “I’ve never engaged in any kind of online campaign that hasn’t received some kind of pushback or trolling. But we’ve had none of that; everyone’s been so supportive of each other, it’s a real community of men and women, people of every race, every sexuality.”
“I’m going after society,” she continues. “I want to get into the schools, I want to get into the eating disorder clinics and the universities. I want to get into the brains of the people who perpetuate this really damaging nonsense: the magazine editors, the Hollywood executives, the social media stars, all the people who have been gifted a platform that they are using irresponsibly.”
She is also very vocal about editing and other tools such as an airbrush to make models and celebrities look phenomenally beautiful. This gives a wrong message to the world, especially to young girls about body image and what is the norm of body acceptance, she says.
Jamil recently uploaded a picture on her Instagram, showing her marks, without using the airbrush tool. In her caption, she called out influencers who use body perfecting tools to manipulate their images to look perfect.