With Rio Carnival just a few days away, Brazilian beach culture is at its peak. Locals and tourists march up and down the coast dressed in costumes and adorned with glitter as they head to pre-Carnival celebrations, and Arpoadar beach is no exception. Located on the peninsula that separates Copacabana and Ipanema and with postcard views of the iconic Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers) mountain, the Praia do Arpoador is one of Rio de Janeiro's most popular beaches.
On Saturday, local activists chose its picturesque sands as the setting for Rio's first Dia de Gordes na Praia ("Day of Fat People on the Beach" in Portuguese). Organized by the non-profit journalism collective Mídia Ninja in collaboration with local YouTubers Alexandra Gurgel and Bernardo Boëchat, the event intended to bring visibility to Brazil's still nascent fat acceptance movement. But on a smaller level, the day is also just about getting people of different shapes and sizes out to the beach—a way of combating the pervasive myth of the singular beach body. Over the space of the afternoon, 50 plus-size attendees came down to enjoy the beach and take part in group discussions on fatphobia.
Dia de Gordes is part of a larger movement across Brazil to make the beach more welcoming, with various meet-ups popping up across coastal towns throughout the summer. A similar event took place earlier this month in Florianópolis, the capital of the southern state of Santa Catarina. That particular event was met with much resistance and ridicule on social media, with critics of the movement dismissing the idea that fat people aren't allowed on the beach.
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