Why are we so obsessed with how skinny women are getting?

There’s been a lot of discussion about how skinny everyone has been getting recently, alongside the increasing availability of weight loss medications. But for anyone who, like me, grew up amidst the ‘heroin chic’ and thinspo era of the 90s and 00s, it’s a stark reminder that everything old is new again. 

I wasted years of my life desperately trying to shrink my body at all costs, and breathed a sigh of relief a few years ago, when there was a movement towards celebrating more diverse body types. It seemed we were finally allowing women to simply exist, without wasting every waking moment trying to be as small as possible.

Even then, there were unrealistic standards by which those in larger bodies could be seen as desirable. Thicker thighs, hips and glutes were in fashion, but only if you managed to maintain a flat and toned midsection. Not to mention how the steps we took towards greater diversity still largely excluded people of colour, people with disabilities and those in much larger bodies than the standard ‘plus size model’ (who are often still smaller than the average Australian woman). 

And now, as I see more celebrities and people in my personal life returning to the pursuit of thinness, I can’t deny the feelings of concern, curiosity, fear and sadness that arise within me. I also can’t avoid the question: Am I just jealous or threatened? I think the honest answer is: in some ways, yes. It would be almost impossible to get to my age without being contaminated by our culture’s obsession with weight loss.

Why do we care so much if other people lose weight?

Even after two decades spent trying to make peace with my body, the constant exposure to the glorification of thinness evokes a visceral reaction of panic and pressure.

When I hear a friend planning to start a restrictive diet, or see images of waiflike celebrities online, it’s like a vice clamping down on my intestines. I’m flooded with memories of days spent agonising over calories or the size of my thighs. I’m overcome with fear that if I don’t follow suit and jump back on the weight loss wagon, I’ll be left behind. 

People socialised as women have long internalised the idea that it’s our job to maintain the beauty and femininity ideals of the day. It was true when women would pluck their hairlines to make their foreheads appear bigger or ingest arsenic to achieve a paler complexion. It was true when I wore padded bras to hide my naturally small chest, or grinded in the gym in the hopes of getting a bigger butt without adding an ounce of fat to my stomach or thighs.

The images we’re bombarded with signal to our subconscious what is normal, desirable and worthy. So when the vast majority of our culture’s most revered and famous women exist in tiny bodies, we naturally internalise the idea that this is what we “should be”. 

Regardless of my actual belief system and my genuine admiration for all body types, my standards for myself remain highly critical and warped by what I’ve learned will allow me to be valued, to belong, and ultimately, to feel safe. 

It’s not just about celebrities either. The pressure to be as small as possible has seeped into my personal circles. Friends who once embraced their curves are upping their cardio, cutting carbs or using medication to shrink down. While I support everyone’s bodily autonomy and don’t judge people for having aesthetic goals, I can’t pretend it doesn’t impact the way I see myself and how I fit into my community. 

I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be the only one not losing weight this summer, or if I’ll continue to have anything in common with my friends who become increasingly focused on their bodies or diets.

There’s also a strong temptation to entertain comparisons when the people we love lose weight. It’s easy to wonder, “If they thought their body needed to change, do they think mine does too? What if I gain weight, or live in a bigger body than everyone I know? Will they judge me, or even worse, pity me?”

Is it ever OK to comment on someone’s body?

The greater awareness we have about the dangers of commenting on other people’s appearance is definitely a sign of progress. At the same time, the idea that we can never express concern for someone who is getting noticeably smaller can make it difficult to call out toxic beauty standards and the dangers of extreme dieting in any meaningful way. 

I once strongly advocated for never commenting on someone’s weight, and I still believe this is the kindest and most responsible approach on a personal level. It also happens to be quite easy for me, as I have a kind of weight blindness when it comes to other people, wherein I barely notice their bodies changing, despite my hyper-vigilance about my own physique.

But every time I witness the return of extreme skinniness as a status symbol, the more systemic and political it feels. I’m also reminded that fat shaming is not the same as skinny shaming, though both are unkind and unhelpful. 

The difference is that our society overwhelmingly idolises thinness in a way that has never applied to those in bigger bodies. Anti-fat bias is powerful, and some research suggests it is more harmful to a person’s health than being ‘overweight’ in the first place. 

The idea that expressing concern about someone rapidly shrinking is as bad as ridiculing someone for gaining weight, circa the grotesque tabloid era of the 2000s, completely ignores the concept of body-based privilege and the intersectional origins of the body positivity movement. 

It’s also a clever way of shutting down any conversation that critiques and exposes the harm of glamorising emaciation, allowing these dangerous trends to continue.

Often, once a small amount of progress is made in society, some claim we’ve gone too far. This is almost always because the redistribution of privilege frightens those who benefit the most from the existing power structures. 

I see this happening now, where influencers and companies that profit from us hating ourselves say that body diversity has gotten out of control, or that we are promoting obesity by simply acknowledging and accepting that bodies come in a variety of sizes, all of which have the right to exist. 

How can we stay sane in a skinny-obsessed society?

I wish I could offer a simple answer to protecting yourself in a world that constantly tells us we are not good enough. 

I wish there were a miracle drug to cure us of the need to be at war with our bodies rather than using them as vessels to experience the joys of life, like music, hugs, fresh bread and gelato, free from anxiety, shame or guilt. 

But if there were, we wouldn’t have generations of women with severe body image trauma.

We wouldn’t see such high death rates among people suffering from anorexia, many of whom aren’t even classified as underweight according to the debunked yet still prevalent body mass index (BMI) scale. 

It’s heartening to see celebrities like Dame Emma Thompson speak out against wasting our passion, purpose, time and money worrying about our bodies. Sadly, these voices are few and far between amidst the sea of pressures to erase as much of ourselves as possible.

Small protective actions we can take include curating our algorithm, muting or unfollowing accounts that encourage critical self-talk or harmful comparisons. You can also adjust settings on many of your accounts to limit how much triggering content appears in your news feeds.

If it feels safe, you can also be open and vulnerable with those you trust. You can share with family or friends that you’d rather not engage in diet talk or gossip about the latest person to drop weight using GLP-1s. 

I do think things are slowly improving, if we zoom out enough to account for fluctuations and cyclical trends. There is more representation of diverse body types in the media than there was 20 years ago, and openly degrading those in bigger bodies is far less normalised than when I was growing up. The conversation about the dangers of narrow beauty standards is less shameful and taboo.

While I don’t write this from a fully healed place, I do have more attunement than ever before to the ways diet culture has harmed me and those I love. I see the double standards in myself that allow me to view other people of all shapes and sizes as truly beautiful, yet see myself as a never-completed project full of flaws to fix or hide.

I hope that we can continue taking baby steps towards a deep knowing that our human worth is inherent and doesn’t change based on the shape or size of our bodies, or as we age and experience health or mobility changes. 

I hope that, even if we wish to pursue weight loss or fitness goals at some stage, we do so with a deep understanding that we are deserving of love and respect in the body we are in right now, and find a way to end the war with ourselves and find peace within our bodies – the only home our soul will ever have while we’re on this planet.