I’ve been in recovery from ED for 6 years and in a much larger body than I was throughout my adult life as a result of that recovery (and of the metabolic consequence of starving myself for 15 years). The ozempic discourse all over media, people getting skinnier and skinnier - it’s a real mindfuck for someone who spent so much of her life focused on being skinny by any means and now isn’t and can’t and won’t even though those means are a lot more accessible and seductive. But I’m also grateful that ozempic happened several years into my recovery and not before it. If it was there, I don’t know if I ever could have actually entered recovery or experienced the benefits of no longer spending all my mental energy on trying to keep myself small. I gave my brain enough glucose to actually work and my mind enough capacity to think about something other than food or thinness. I have actual hobbies, so many more friends, I realized I wasn’t straight (!) or neurotypical (!!). I have a wife, a home, a dog. For me this rich life wouldn’t have been possible before recovery. I worry about the people who will miss that chance that I had to change things and decenter my weight and body from my entire existence.
Eight years for me in recovery. Was really hoping the 90s would not rear its too-big-for-the-body head. I graduated HS in 1990 and started erasing myself. I was all sharp angles and Diet
Coke. Jolting my heart into action via overexercise. I got to a healthy weight just as perimenopause showed up in my world and Ozempic did in everyone else’s. I
Don’t judge one bit. The fear of getting fat is still rampant in me. I had to get off
IG last year and I kinda don’t watch TV because 1) TV time was binge time and 2) everyone is disappearing in front of our eyes and calling ti “maxxing” —
The audacity! The irony! I still feel complicit for walking around acting like my size was somehow “fit” and “healthy. “
5 years of recovery for me. Was also really hoping the early 2000s/late 90s trends would never come back... It really is crazy to watch every single woman in new media today be so thin. I'm preparing to get married, and even though there is the perpetual pressure to "look the best I've ever looked" on one day of my life, the GLP1 craze everywhere I look makes it even harder.
1000% agree with so many of the wonderfully said, and expertly connected, points!
It bugs me to no end that celebrities who are pushing a culture of hyper-skinniness and thus, influencing the eating behaviors of many young women (whether they like this influence they have or not) then try to hide behind the body neutral movement (i.e. you shouldn’t talk about a woman’s body, it isn’t healthy/okay). The reality is, when there is an influx of clavicles, hip bones, and spines that are now clearly visible on influential bodies, they are commenting on and contributing to society’s ideal body —there’s a reason why these features are being flaunted instead of hidden!
We are all guilty of partaking in this trap/cycle/parasitic obsession, no one is completely innocent. But, as you said, just because we are susceptible to this influence doesn’t mean we can’t fight back. We have to keep having these honest conversations, even if it makes some of us have to confront uncomfortable truths about ourselves!
The part that really kills me is the cover-ups - the pretending. The fake “what I eat in a day” they post the 1 day a week they actually have a proper day of nutrition (conveniently slipping the other 500cal days under the rug). They even have a dessert, oh, isn’t that sweet? She must just be naturally thin. Never mind what doesn’t make the curated cut.
And to be honest? I don’t need to know what anyone eats in a day. I don’t need to know. It’s literally none of my business. I’m so good.
It’s those things that really confuse people and make them feel like they must be doing something wrong. I’ve found a few fitness influencers who embrace honesty and it’s really refreshing. I’m so over the smoke and mirrors. Buttering up the bread as a trick to glorify. To show that it’s effortless or whatever.
After years of fighting to build a culture of acceptance where plus-size, mid-size, and bodies that naturally fluctuate were normalized, it’s appalling to see us moving backward. Having lived through the Ana Tumblr era and seen the toll it took on my online friends, I’m deeply unsettled by the return of glamorized thinness. Seeing even body-positivity icons shift toward these old standards makes me fearful for the generation we’re raising. It’s heartbreaking to see the same insecurities we've been trying to unlearn being handed down to a new generation. I'm honestly afraid of the world we're building for them.
it's like you wrote the exact comment i just wanted to write - it was hard enough trying to undo the years of conditioning and damage the early 2000s wrought, even as culture finally started celebrating all bodies. but now? it's so disheartening to see culture move backwards when we *know better.*
“The current landscape of ultra-thinness will make the gold medalist of remission flirt with behaviors they left behind, or fall face-flat back into them.” this is spot on.
I just...can't be bothered to wring my hands over some super thin celebrities/influencers when it's extremely rare that I see anyone in my real life (the grocery store, the gym, church, restaurants, friends' parties, etc) who has a BMI of 20 or less, let alone under 18. In the real world, trust me, most people are still plenty fat. 70% of Americans are still overweight or obese. We've got a loooong way to go before everyone is dangerously thin, and in the meantime plenty of people remain dangerously large.
Agree fully. I live in a relatively "fit" city with loads of cycling and hiking, and even here I've never come across a single person who looks like one of these ultra frail celebs. I'm not sure I could even name 50 celebs that have drastically lost weight since ozempic. Hot take but I feel like we're hyper focusing on the same 10 womens' bodies. (Ariana, Demi, Cynthia etc)
Although I agree that we need to shift the focus away from celebrities, as a 25 year old living in Vancouver, BC, I know tons of people in my demographic who recently have started to struggle with their body image and eating. Or their EDs from high school are coming back. They never explicitly say they look up to people who are dangerously thin. It's remarks such as "my medication suppresses my appetite, which is kinda nice since bikini season is coming up", or "body is TEA", or "skinny queen!" which raise small red flags for me. So I don't think it's fair to completely disregard Hollywood because it may not represent each and every single North American. It does however reflect our current society and where things are going. And just proof that our generation sees a certain type of body on their screens and, whether they realize or not, want that for themselves.
We need to quit pussy footing. The powers at be are trying to shrink women until they disappear. This is an epidemic that has been haunting women for decades and we need to stop the self-inflicted famine.
“don’t lose too much weight. stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid.” - a quote from a wonderful poem by Marty McConnell about loving and then leaving a man.
This felt so cathartic to read. When you actually pick it apart, it’s fucking insane to aspire to being thin!! especially as someone who is short, becoming thin in the way that is now the Standard would literally give me a prepubescent child’s level of strength. and like you said, much easier to push around and force to submit. absolutely the fuck not and literally anytime I catch myself policing my portions I have to remind myself that they want us weak. they want us tired and they want us turning our criticism towards ourselves and For Sure Not the state of the world around us. Thank you for this!!!
I remember when Kim Kardashian wore a dress to the Met Gala a couple of years ago and cause a lot of backlash on the internet by sharing how she starved herself to look good in it. Fast-forward to today, and the skinny trend is only getting more dangerous, but it gives me hope that I, my sister, and so many women out there, as the internet shows me, resist absorbing the “skinny is good” message and engage in honest conversations rather than averting our eyes from realities that seemingly have nothing to do with us our our lives, but actually have everything to do with us.
This was a great read. I've had my own ongoing problems with body image and eating, and I'm being very careful to not slip back down the slope. My little sister gained some weight in her late teens, then lost some as a result of a more physical job and a smoking/vaping habit. She's recently quit nicotine, and now seems cautious of gaining weight again. I'm always careful to remind her to be kind to herself and not let it get to her, but it's hard knowing I can only be there for her and not save her from the pressures of being thin. Again, wonderful piece. I'll be thinking of this today.
Yeah it's really exhausting. Now I see how it must have felt in the nineties and early 2000s. I wasn't old enough to be affected very much by the "heroin chic" thinness then, but I'm definitely feeling it now. Thanks for writing this Valerie!
I’ve been in recovery from ED for 6 years and in a much larger body than I was throughout my adult life as a result of that recovery (and of the metabolic consequence of starving myself for 15 years). The ozempic discourse all over media, people getting skinnier and skinnier - it’s a real mindfuck for someone who spent so much of her life focused on being skinny by any means and now isn’t and can’t and won’t even though those means are a lot more accessible and seductive. But I’m also grateful that ozempic happened several years into my recovery and not before it. If it was there, I don’t know if I ever could have actually entered recovery or experienced the benefits of no longer spending all my mental energy on trying to keep myself small. I gave my brain enough glucose to actually work and my mind enough capacity to think about something other than food or thinness. I have actual hobbies, so many more friends, I realized I wasn’t straight (!) or neurotypical (!!). I have a wife, a home, a dog. For me this rich life wouldn’t have been possible before recovery. I worry about the people who will miss that chance that I had to change things and decenter my weight and body from my entire existence.
Eight years for me in recovery. Was really hoping the 90s would not rear its too-big-for-the-body head. I graduated HS in 1990 and started erasing myself. I was all sharp angles and Diet
Coke. Jolting my heart into action via overexercise. I got to a healthy weight just as perimenopause showed up in my world and Ozempic did in everyone else’s. I
Don’t judge one bit. The fear of getting fat is still rampant in me. I had to get off
IG last year and I kinda don’t watch TV because 1) TV time was binge time and 2) everyone is disappearing in front of our eyes and calling ti “maxxing” —
The audacity! The irony! I still feel complicit for walking around acting like my size was somehow “fit” and “healthy. “
5 years of recovery for me. Was also really hoping the early 2000s/late 90s trends would never come back... It really is crazy to watch every single woman in new media today be so thin. I'm preparing to get married, and even though there is the perpetual pressure to "look the best I've ever looked" on one day of my life, the GLP1 craze everywhere I look makes it even harder.
1000% agree with so many of the wonderfully said, and expertly connected, points!
It bugs me to no end that celebrities who are pushing a culture of hyper-skinniness and thus, influencing the eating behaviors of many young women (whether they like this influence they have or not) then try to hide behind the body neutral movement (i.e. you shouldn’t talk about a woman’s body, it isn’t healthy/okay). The reality is, when there is an influx of clavicles, hip bones, and spines that are now clearly visible on influential bodies, they are commenting on and contributing to society’s ideal body —there’s a reason why these features are being flaunted instead of hidden!
We are all guilty of partaking in this trap/cycle/parasitic obsession, no one is completely innocent. But, as you said, just because we are susceptible to this influence doesn’t mean we can’t fight back. We have to keep having these honest conversations, even if it makes some of us have to confront uncomfortable truths about ourselves!
Really enjoyed!
“Everyone is really fucking thin” is honestly the most accurate cultural observation I’ve seen all week.
Five words that say a million
Everything this says and more.
The part that really kills me is the cover-ups - the pretending. The fake “what I eat in a day” they post the 1 day a week they actually have a proper day of nutrition (conveniently slipping the other 500cal days under the rug). They even have a dessert, oh, isn’t that sweet? She must just be naturally thin. Never mind what doesn’t make the curated cut.
And to be honest? I don’t need to know what anyone eats in a day. I don’t need to know. It’s literally none of my business. I’m so good.
It’s those things that really confuse people and make them feel like they must be doing something wrong. I’ve found a few fitness influencers who embrace honesty and it’s really refreshing. I’m so over the smoke and mirrors. Buttering up the bread as a trick to glorify. To show that it’s effortless or whatever.
After years of fighting to build a culture of acceptance where plus-size, mid-size, and bodies that naturally fluctuate were normalized, it’s appalling to see us moving backward. Having lived through the Ana Tumblr era and seen the toll it took on my online friends, I’m deeply unsettled by the return of glamorized thinness. Seeing even body-positivity icons shift toward these old standards makes me fearful for the generation we’re raising. It’s heartbreaking to see the same insecurities we've been trying to unlearn being handed down to a new generation. I'm honestly afraid of the world we're building for them.
it's like you wrote the exact comment i just wanted to write - it was hard enough trying to undo the years of conditioning and damage the early 2000s wrought, even as culture finally started celebrating all bodies. but now? it's so disheartening to see culture move backwards when we *know better.*
exactly this
“The current landscape of ultra-thinness will make the gold medalist of remission flirt with behaviors they left behind, or fall face-flat back into them.” this is spot on.
👑 u dropped this
I just...can't be bothered to wring my hands over some super thin celebrities/influencers when it's extremely rare that I see anyone in my real life (the grocery store, the gym, church, restaurants, friends' parties, etc) who has a BMI of 20 or less, let alone under 18. In the real world, trust me, most people are still plenty fat. 70% of Americans are still overweight or obese. We've got a loooong way to go before everyone is dangerously thin, and in the meantime plenty of people remain dangerously large.
Agree fully. I live in a relatively "fit" city with loads of cycling and hiking, and even here I've never come across a single person who looks like one of these ultra frail celebs. I'm not sure I could even name 50 celebs that have drastically lost weight since ozempic. Hot take but I feel like we're hyper focusing on the same 10 womens' bodies. (Ariana, Demi, Cynthia etc)
Although I agree that we need to shift the focus away from celebrities, as a 25 year old living in Vancouver, BC, I know tons of people in my demographic who recently have started to struggle with their body image and eating. Or their EDs from high school are coming back. They never explicitly say they look up to people who are dangerously thin. It's remarks such as "my medication suppresses my appetite, which is kinda nice since bikini season is coming up", or "body is TEA", or "skinny queen!" which raise small red flags for me. So I don't think it's fair to completely disregard Hollywood because it may not represent each and every single North American. It does however reflect our current society and where things are going. And just proof that our generation sees a certain type of body on their screens and, whether they realize or not, want that for themselves.
We need to quit pussy footing. The powers at be are trying to shrink women until they disappear. This is an epidemic that has been haunting women for decades and we need to stop the self-inflicted famine.
“don’t lose too much weight. stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid.” - a quote from a wonderful poem by Marty McConnell about loving and then leaving a man.
I saw a pic of Oprah yesterday that truly terrified me. Not only did she look so skinny she also was walking as if she'd been drugged.
This felt so cathartic to read. When you actually pick it apart, it’s fucking insane to aspire to being thin!! especially as someone who is short, becoming thin in the way that is now the Standard would literally give me a prepubescent child’s level of strength. and like you said, much easier to push around and force to submit. absolutely the fuck not and literally anytime I catch myself policing my portions I have to remind myself that they want us weak. they want us tired and they want us turning our criticism towards ourselves and For Sure Not the state of the world around us. Thank you for this!!!
Thank god someone is saying it!
I've accepted it's a trend. Next decade BBLs will be back again...
I remember when Kim Kardashian wore a dress to the Met Gala a couple of years ago and cause a lot of backlash on the internet by sharing how she starved herself to look good in it. Fast-forward to today, and the skinny trend is only getting more dangerous, but it gives me hope that I, my sister, and so many women out there, as the internet shows me, resist absorbing the “skinny is good” message and engage in honest conversations rather than averting our eyes from realities that seemingly have nothing to do with us our our lives, but actually have everything to do with us.
This was a great read. I've had my own ongoing problems with body image and eating, and I'm being very careful to not slip back down the slope. My little sister gained some weight in her late teens, then lost some as a result of a more physical job and a smoking/vaping habit. She's recently quit nicotine, and now seems cautious of gaining weight again. I'm always careful to remind her to be kind to herself and not let it get to her, but it's hard knowing I can only be there for her and not save her from the pressures of being thin. Again, wonderful piece. I'll be thinking of this today.
Yeah it's really exhausting. Now I see how it must have felt in the nineties and early 2000s. I wasn't old enough to be affected very much by the "heroin chic" thinness then, but I'm definitely feeling it now. Thanks for writing this Valerie!