It seems everyone’s favourite body-positive advocate, Lizzo, has teamed up with beloved beauty brand, Dove, to change the current conversation about beauty.
The three-time Grammy-award winner will be lending her voice to social media posts, press and other appearances, with an important mission to encourage women and girls to embrace body positivity and to help them form healthier relationships with social media.
Lizzo broke the news on Instagram yesterday by sharing a candid, untouched nude photo with her 10.2 million followers.
“I wanna give y’all this unedited selfie... now normally I would fix my belly and smooth my skin but baby I wanted show u how I do it au natural," she wrote in the caption, alongside a photo of herself posing with a coffee mug.
“I am excited to be partnership with @dove and the #DoveSelfEsteemProject which is helping to reverse the negative effects of social media and changing the conversation about beauty standards.”
As part of Dove’s Self-Esteem Project, which was founded in 2004, the brand is encouraging adults to embrace “the selfie talk” with the young people in their lives.
As seen in the Confidence Kit (available to download here), the brand has also sought advice from experts to help navigate the topic of body confidence in young people. The 32-page document explores social media’s impact on wellbeing and how to deal with appearance-related bullying.
“I love how this generation is so creative in the ways in which they express themselves,” Lizzo said. "It’s really inspiring to see how people are taking their identity and their beauty into their own hands. However, people are struggling with their self-image and self-confidence more than ever.
This is amplified by the increasing pressure to show a digitally distorted version of ourselves, reinforcing the idea that our beauty in real life is not good enough or worthy of likes.”
To put into perspective the dangers of digital self-distortion, Dove has created a film that reverses the editing process to demonstrate how people’s self-esteem can be influenced by these apps. You can watch it here.
