Beachbody Is Rebranding to Bodi and It's a Huge Problem.

The body positivity movement has been gaining a lot of traction in recent years. It's a movement that is all about accepting and celebrating your body, no matter what size or shape you are. 

It's a movement that is very much needed in our society, which prioritizes dieting and being thin over health. But when I heard that Beachbody was rebranding to BODi, I was immediately concerned.

What is the Body Positivity Movement?

The body positivity movement is about so much more than just "loving your curves." It's about accepting your body as it is, and recognizing that all bodies are good bodies. It's about challenging the societal norms that tell us we need to be a certain size or shape in order to be considered attractive or worthy. And it's about promoting health at every size.  

This movement, which was led by a group of fat, queer Black women in the 1960s, fought for liberation of all marginalized bodies. At the time, it was groundbreaking for a group of fat, queer, Black women to demand respect from society.

What we see on Instagram now is a watered-down, whitewashed version of what the body positivity movement used to be. White women dominate the conversation, bending over to create rolls of skin for a photo to pair with a caption about personal insecurities. 

Meanwhile, the amount of larger bodies, colored bodies, and disabled bodies being celebrated are relatively small. Marginalized bodies continue to be under-represented. Additionally, the intersection of body positivity and gender identity is largely ignored.

Diet culture is the opposite of the body positivity movement. Diet culture is about controlling your body, changing your body to fit societal norms, and valuing thinness over health.

Beachbody is diet culture personified. Beachbody's entire business model is based on the idea that you need to change your body in order to be healthy and happy. Beachbody sells exercise programs and nutrition plans that involve severe calorie restriction, food deprivation, and over-exercise in the sole pursuit of thinness.

This is what the body positivity movement is working against. The body positivity movement celebrates all sizes and shapes. The body positivity movement understands that weight and size are NOT indicative of a person's health. Just like a thin person can be unhealthy, a fat person can be healthy.

Diet culture ignores this and continues to push the pursuit for thinness as the only way to be healthy, further stigmatizing weight and larger bodies. The issue here is that dieting, especially chronic or pathological dieting, can be incredibly risky and harmful to your health.

Inadequate diets can lead to nutrient deficiencies, which can cause a whole host of health problems. For example, nutrient deficiencies can cause hair loss, fatigue, muscle weakness, organ damage, and even death.

Additionally, diet culture can be incredibly harmful to our mental health. It can lead to feelings of self-hatred and shame, and it can be incredibly damaging to our relationships with food. Using dieting to overcome body dissatisfaction can lead to an increased risk for developing eating disorders. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. They are also incredibly difficult to recover from.

This is important stuff that cannot continue to be ignored by the fitness industry!

The Beachbody Rebranding Announcement

Beachbody hosted its 2022 Leadership Retreat in Scottsdale, Arizona this year. It was during this event that Beachbody CEO, Carl Daikeler, announced the company's rebrand, including a name change to "BODi."

Carl claims the new name is meant to reflect the company's new stance on inclusivity. "BODi is about every BODY," he said. "We want to be inclusive of everybody."

This rebranding announcement comes on the heels of a steep decline in business performance over the past two years. It's no secret that Beachbody has been struggling, and many have speculated that the company's new direction is a last-ditch effort to save the business.

Beachbody Is Adding a Mindset Platform to BODi

Beachbody is also introducing a new mindset platform, to round out their offerings in fitness and nutrition. Beachbody has partnered with Petra Kolber to lead the BODi "personal development" platform.  Petra is an author and motivational speaker.

The new platform is said to focus on helping Beachbody customers "achieve their dreams" and will include things like goal setting, personal development training, and meditation. It is important to note that there is no publicly available information verifying that Petra has any higher education or credentials in psychology.

What is BODi “Health Esteem?”

The last major change Beachbody is making to the brand is  the introduction of "Health Esteem." Beachbody is positioning this as the company's new North Star, and it will be the cornerstone of all Beachbody programming moving forward.

Carl's big idea to keep his business afloat is that instead of competing with other companies in the fitness industry, BODi can create a new category of health all together.

According to a leaked summary from Beachbody leadership, "Health esteem includes fitness, nutrition and mindset. It's a concept of enjoying fitness and nutrition in balance and achieving success by feeling good and setting habits that last."

They go on to claim that this platform will be what makes them radically different from the rest of the health and wellness industry. The irony is that they're not acknowledging - or don't even realize - that this is the very foundation the industry operates on, and the fact of the matter is that they are the ones late to adopt the concept.

Why Beachbody's Rebranding is a Problem

Beachbody is well known in the fitness industry for being one of the top contributors to diet culture. From a nutrition science and exercise science standpoint, their programs are unsafe and unrealistic. Their marketing materials are full of before-and-after photos and messaging that suggests that you need to lose weight in order to be healthy and happy. 

What's more, the leaders of Beachbody have gone on record bashing the body positivity movement. In a recent Instagram story, Beachbody Super Trainer, Autumn Calabrese said that she was “so over this bullshit body positivity movement” because it is only positive towards people who are “not in shape.”

It is important to note that while thin and white bodies are not excluded from the movement, they also should not be centered. Those with the privilege of being born into a smaller body have always had the luxury of not having to think about their size. The body positivity movement is about celebrating all bodies, including those that have been traditionally marginalized.

What she is missing is that “healthy” does not have a look. “Unhealthy” does not have a look. Having an eating disorder does not have a look. Being “in shape” is not the same thing as being in a small body, and you can’t tell if someone is “not in shape” simply because they are in a larger body.

Health professionals, like myself, have been tirelessly calling on Beachbody to change their ways. We've been begging them to stop promoting their products as a way to "fix" people's bodies. We've been asking Beachbody to start promoting health, not thinness.

So when Beachbody rebranded to BODi, I was cautiously optimistic. Maybe, just maybe, Beachbody was finally going to start promoting health instead of thinness.

But I was quickly disappointed.

Beachbody's rebranding to BODi seems like nothing more than a way for them to cash in on a movement they don't actually care about.

When questioned in a recent Instagram live, Autumn just doubled down. Insisting that her dislike of the movement was attributed to thin, white bodies not being centered. What she is confusing here is the difference between equality and equity, further demonstrating her lack of knowledge about this social justice movement.

It’s giving “All Lives Matter” and is beyond frustrating to watch unfold in real time.

The phrase "actions speak louder than words" comes to mind here. Without an apology for their contribution to diet culture, the continued display of ignorance about the movement from their leaders, and no changes to their unsafe diet programs, this is a blatant co-opting of a social justice movement for profit.

Promoting their products under the guise of body positivity and health appears to be a bait and switch tactic, and it shows a lack of concern for people's safety and well-being. Luring people in who are suffering from body dissatisfaction, with the promise of health promotion, and then placing them on restrictive diets (did I mention all BODi "Starter Packs" will come with 21-Day Fix Portion Containers? As if a bundle with Shakeology and Energize wasn’t bad enough.)  is not only unethical, it's dangerous. 

If Beachbody was truly interested in being a part of the body positivity movement, they would need to do a lot more than simply change their name. They need to make substantive changes to their business model and the way they market their products. Until then, Beachbody's rebranding is nothing more than another MLM marketing ploy, and I for one am not buying it.

Conclusion

As someone who has been critical of Beachbody in the past, I was hoping that their rebranding would be a sign that they were finally ready to start promoting health instead of thinness. Unfortunately, it seems like Beachbody is simply trying to cash in on a movement they don't actually care to take the time and understand.

In this way, it is going to cause more harm than good. Beachbody's continued display of ignorance about the body positivity movement is dangerous, and their unwillingness to make changes to their unsafe diet programs is inexcusable. Marketing themselves as "part of the solution" while actively being the problem is not only disingenuous, it's dangerous.

You have better options when it comes to health and fitness than Beachbody/BODi.

Find a program that is centered around health promotion.

That encourages healthful eating FIRST.

That encourages healthy movement, without obsession.

And most importantly, give your body the respect it deserves.