Women are proudly dancing with their bellies hanging out in body-positive TikTok trend

A new body-positivity trend in which women lower their high-waisted jeans and show off their bellies is sweeping TikTok with incredible force, and has now amassed more than 60 million views on the app. 

The ’empowering’ trend was kicked off by user Lizzy Khang, who shared a video of herself dancing with her belly out ‘to show young girls it’s OK to have a tummy.’

Soon, other TikTok users were doing duets with her video, adding their own belly-out dances in an effort to normalize different body types. 

Lizzy shared the original video a week ago, which starts with her dancing in high-waisted black jeans and a crop top.  

She looks slim and trendy, and while only a sliver of her midriff is showing, it appears totally flat.

But then she pulls the top of her jeans down, exposing a little belly — and she keeps it exposed, continuing to dance with her tummy out. 

The video went viral, racking up 16 million views so far.  

‘The point of the video was to show young girls it’s OK to have a tummy,’ Lizzy explained on Instagram. ‘Every body is a beautiful body. It’s 2020, we don’t body shame anymore.

‘Self love baby, self love. Just a reminder that what you see on social media isn’t real,’ she added in another post. ‘You only see what we show you. You are beautiful and enough. I still have days where I absolutely hate myself and that’s okay. We all have those days. Take good care of your body, it’s the only body you get.’  

One of the TikTokers to view her video was  Carolina Gurdian, 27, who told BuzzFeed she was struck by ‘this beautiful girl really enjoying her body and putting out there that she had a little tummy and she was terribly happy with it.

She decided to piggyback on her video, uploading a TikTok duet with Lizzy on the right and Carolina — doing the same dance, including the moment of pulling her jeans lower to expose her belly — on the left.

Her version quickly went viral, too, with 8.9 million views so far — and countless supportive and grateful comments.

‘I can’t even tell you how many girls have messaged me saying I have an ED [eating disorder] because my body wasn’t portrayed in the media and I wanted to look like that, and I wanted to achieve it by unhealthy mediums,’ she said.

‘The majority of the comments were girls saying, “This makes me feel normal,” “You look beautiful and I see myself,” and “I have the same body and I want to get to the point where I accept myself.”‘ 

‘We all have a belly, especially in quarantine,’ she added. ‘We’re normalizing the fact that being midsize or having a belly doesn’t mean you’re unhealthy. I’ve never been healthier in my life, and I’ve never been bigger in my life.’ 

More TikTokers soon joined in and continued to build on the duet.

Next was Brittani Lancaster, who added her own clip in black jeans and a gray crop top and has earned 4.6 million so far.

Then came in Brooklynne Webb, 16, from British Columbia, who mixed it up with a colorful butterfly top. Her video has 11.9 million views and shows all four women dancing with their tummies out. 

‘On TikTok it’s all videos so you can’t really photoshop as much,’ she said. ‘Of course people still show their best sides on TikTok, [but] on Instagram I see more edited images, or the way they pose, there’s a specific way you can pose on an angle to make [your body] look a lot better.’ 

Finally came Sienna Gomez, 16, whose video as 18.5 million views. She, too, noted that TikTok users can’t edit their image like they might on Instagram, saying the platform offers a more ‘real’ look.

She’s also had commenters thanking her for the video. 

Other versions of the duet thread show more women joining in, happily embracing their bodies as they dance on camera.