Eight years ago, Oliviera decided to change course: her diet plan went in the trash and she decided to stop being insecure about her extra buddy. “At a certain point I noticed that I mainly did it for the outside world, but no longer for myself,” she tells EditieNL.
Plus size clothing
Her insecurity was mainly due to the lack of fun, fashionable plus-size clothing. “It’s really no fun if you can’t find nice clothes in the city. That does something to you.” Oliviera’s fashion sense has dragged her out of the pit. “I’ve come to love myself more by putting my best effort into how I look.”
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Nowadays, the choice of plus-size clothing has become a lot larger. This seems to be related to the arrival of the body positivity movement and programs such as #EerlijkeFoto and Curvy Supermodel, which show that it is okay to have a curvier.
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Research CBS
Between 2018 and 2020, 26 percent of severely overweight adults reported being satisfied with their weight. Between 2015 and 2017 this was still 22 percent. Serious overweight is when the BMI is above 30.
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Equal treatment
Internist and endocrinologist Liesbeth van Rossum at Erasmus MC sees a lot of sadness in her consulting room about this theme. “People don’t want to be fat,” she tells EditieNL. Research shows that obese people are less likely to be in leadership positions, less likely to find a new job and be treated differently in health care. “There is still a lot of shame. A body positivity movement like this can help with that.”
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Saskia Olivieira calls the fact that people with a curvier are not treated equally. “We only look at how someone looks and therefore we no longer look at who someone is as a person. I think that is very bad. That constant exclusion and bullying behavior has major consequences.”
‘Respect and connect’
Although there is progress, according to the influencer, we still have a long way to go. “You still see that women are fighting each other. That slim women think that fat women get too much attention because of this movement.” We should not put each other down, but respect and connect, she believes. “A lot of gains can still be made in the field of equal treatment.”
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On the other hand, we should not underestimate the risks of obesity, emphasizes internist and endocrinologist Liesbeth van Rossum. “It really is a disease and can have major consequences. Just because you are satisfied with your body does not mean that you no longer have to do anything about it. Fat is an organ that produces hormones. If you have too much of it, you become you sick. Being overweight is a silent killer.”
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