If the beginning of the decade in bodies was defined by size zero, clavicles worn proudly by tanned celebrities as if Cartier necklaces, and the end was defined by a loudly proclaimed yet slippery embrace of body positivity, where are we right now on the body hatred spectrum?

Much came in between the two, of course, and little of it good. There were the eating disorders (hospital admissions for which continue to rise sharply), which sistered a worldwide obesity epidemic, and the pills that helped desperate women defecate fat. There was the speed at which it had become familiar to see an actress turn to the side on a red carpet and simply disappear. In January 2010, three diet TV shows competed for ratings: Fat Families, Generation XXL and My Big Fat Diet Show, an interactive diet-along.

Over the years these weight-loss stories moved online, regifted as empowerment. There were the gurus of weight loss, then fitness, and later clean eating; there were the plus-sized bikini models laughing on Instagram. There was Dove, with its soaps expertly marketed to cure women of their bodies. There was Lena Dunhams belly, site of a thousand think pieces, only 300 or so by me. There was the supermodel-esque actor Jameela Jamil who, in campaigning against unrealistic body ideals inspired thousands of women, but made an equal number very cross indeed.

Across the decade, one mantra of mainstream feminism was to love your body through any means necessary. Plastic surgery and injectibles became normalised overnight, with new lips as easy to buy in a lunch hour as a Boots meal deal. On Love Island, nobody ever shaved their legs all hair had been lasered off their generation the day it became pubic. The ideal body shape rebuilt itself before our eyes, from something made of bones with eyes to something made of bones with an arse the Kardashian family, their narratives about sex and fertility and cash and race written on their skin, take up a whole chapter here, size nine font, 1,000 pages.

I support a move towards proud ambivalence

So now what? So now, standing here in the classic pose, underwear-clad before a mirror, pinching the sides of our hips with fingers once disgusted, where are we? For all the journeying we appear to have done, for all the magazines that banned diet recipes but pivoted to clean eating and a dash of Botox, for all the brands, like Weight Watchers, that frantically attempted to catch up with the zeitgeist but appeared to break down somewhere near Heston Services, it feels to me as though weve not moved forward, instead, veered just a little to the side.

Because while the body positivity movement celebrates all bodies that spill over the waistband of what is currently acceptable, it fails to illuminate the reasons why so many people have such bitter and violent relationships with their bodies to begin with. By skipping those sticky conversations, ones that reach into the offal of politics and families, and the day-to-day existence of being a fat person in the world and instead leaping straight to the friendly hashtag, complete with women detailing their own blessed journeys towards inner beauty, it heaves all responsibility for feeling better about ones body on to the shoulders of the person within it.

The reasons so many people hate their bodies go deeper than a Dove ad can explain, and they are good reasons they may not be correct, they may be horrific and mean and based in decades of well-funded sexism, but they are logical, and they were taught to us young.

So the impact of enforcing body positivity on people who, under their skin, know there are rational reasons they have sex with the lights off, or fear exercising in public, or click on Instagram links to cosmetic surgeons in Turkey, or have been on diets since they were 12, can feel like two trucks crashing in their throat. Everybodys beautiful, and all bodies are perfect! said 2019, to a small murmur from those pointing out that the workplace, Tinder, fashion and health professionals disagree. The effect, then, was a feeling of isolation, and a doubling of guilt. Guilt both for living in a body that doesnt fit and for wanting to change it.

Which is why I support a move away from body positivity, and all the smile for the camera pressures that involves, and towards a new era of body neutrality. Of proud ambivalence. Here theres plenty of room, both for those who revel in their physical strength and beauty, and those who dont want their bodies to be political statements, read as branded content, or even to think about them much at all. After a draining decade in body image, Im hoping that until the messy little business of restructuring the world in order to find true equality is completed, the message of the next 10 years will be, not to love your body, but instead, find peace with it.

Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @EvaWiseman

More:

Body positivity has had its day. Lets find peace with ourselves - The Guardian