I don't want to give up the pleasure of food, of eating for both nutrition and taste. I've never bought that idea that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. It is a perversion of what it means to be alive.
Watching the larger models and influencers disappear feels like we are returning to that notion that skinny is all that matters but with a new punitive angle. If you don't take the drugs you are behind the times or out of fashion or poor. I am glad I am old, the pressure on young women of size must be awful.
“Until we start thinking outside of the silo of our individual choices…we’ll never truly transcend the implications of what it means to exist in any kind of body.” THIS!! Formerly fat influencers use “individual choice” as their go-to defense (“I’m just doing what I want and not FORCING anyone else to lose weight!!!!!”) instead of exploring what it means for their community. It’s this delusion that they exist in a vacuum, when OF COURSE there are repercussions for the body neutrality movement.
The hardest part to all of this is the fat community online is so small compared the presence of thin influencers across all content genres. We are all seeing the same people shrinking, talking about how they would have been thinner all along if not for insulin resistance or other issues that Ozempic and the like now have “fixed”. It’s like they were stuck in a fat body and they have been saved from it.
What did all that talking about body positivity mean then? Absolutely nothing to them and those of us seeing it, we are betrayed yet again by people we trusted. Not that they owe us fatness, but they do owe us something. They owe us not shaming the fat folks they leaned on for many years for community and compensation, they owe us not giggling about how they can wipe their asses now and wooooowwww they can finally breathe AND constantly posting about how it’s so much easier to shop now!!! It’s pathetic, immature and shows that they were really always pretending to like or support fat bodies.
Whenever we tie a systemic issue to personal choice, we run into this dilemma. I think it's broadly akin to the idea of choice feminism, which I will point blank say DOES NOT exist. This analogy is a very new train of thought for me, so this won't be 100% on point, but essentially, choice feminism says that because you are making a choice, it doesn't matter what the choice is; it's feminist to even have a choice to make. When you think about it, saying, "I chose to take my husband's name, so I'm a feminist" makes very little sense. A choice doesn't indicate feminism; there are things we do that are feminist and things we do that are not, and it's important to understand that.
Bodily autonomy IS paramount, but choosing to use a drug to lose weight erases the body posi/fat acceptance/fat pol part of the equation. It is categorically not fat positive to use drugs to lose weight. Whatever the reason for the choice!
I 100% do not think it's wrong to exercise your body autonomy any way you see fit. I have 17 tattoos and over a dozen piercings. No one gets to have a say in that; it's my body and I'll decorate it the way I see fit. If someone wants to use drugs to lose weight, I have no say in that. But it is a choice that puts paid to any further claim of body positivity, fat positivity, or fat acceptance. It actively upholds the current political system that marginalizes fat people.
Back to the choice feminism analogy: my sister took her husband's name upon marriage. I did not. I don't love her less, but I do think it was an anti-feminist decision and that she can't call it a feminist decision simply because it was hers to make. (She does not, fwiw! She readily admits that it upholds a patriarchal system.)
On the other hand, if I followed a vocal feminist on social media who suddenly chose to become a tradwife, I'm not sure I'd say I felt betrayed, but I would not think she was a feminist anymore, and I would 100% stop following her. So too with fat influencers who lose weight as a choice.
It’s all so complicated, and also social media polarizes and toxifies any healthy conversation about anything. So this especially is gonna be complicated AF to discuss (as you said).
I’m not active on social, nor do I follow many influencers so I haven’t noticed the shift. But one of my favorite substacks shared that they are on a GLP-1, and their journey (noting they are already thin).
And my biggest takeaway was “wow, that’s A LOT of negatives to experience and it isn’t sustainable long term anyway”.
I’m not gonna judge people for their personal choices, but it won’t be something I choose…for numerous reasons.
I’ll stick to being active because it makes my body feel good and strong, and eat what makes my body feel good — and continuing to work on my own self image. Some days I feel strong and sexy, and some days I’m like “ahh I wish I didn’t have cellulite on my upper arms!!”. 🤷♀️
This is exactly how I have been feeling. It is so complicated! I have always been a bigger girl, and now in my 40s I am as fat as I have ever been. Everything seems to be harder, more tiring, and painful. I am in eating disorder recovery and this is part of why I have gained more weight recently. I cannot sacrifice the progress I have made there to try and make myself thinner. Maybe I would have less chronic pain and therefore better energy, but I also have always associated exercise with trying to lose weight, thanks to growing up in the 80s and 90s. It's complicated! I wish it was easier to exist.
We are same except I’m in my 50s. Recently my friend who lost weight on GLP-1 asked me …something to the effect of “why didn’t I love myself enough to allow myself to be a healthier weight”. I….still don’t even know what to do with a thought like that. No, I don’t love my body. I have a terrible and previously dangerous relationship with it. Weight loss drugs aren’t going to “fix” that, and anyway it’s my understanding they make your appetite go away. I can do that the hell of a lot cheaper by not eating. It took 9 weeks in treatment for me to get an appetite back. They told me they had me on the lowest safe plan to try to make it turn back on, and they were super concerned that it wasn’t. (When it finally did, it was fierce)
I’m continually disappointed at this sort of thing. My own friends, my own family all of whom say they love me and aren’t known for crummy behavior.
What I also find pretty hard to understand is that some people who were body positive, plus size influencers, but who have lost a lot of weight, are still calling themselves plus-size. Still saying "we" and "us" when talking to their fat audience. And yet posting photos in brands they previously shunned for not being inclusive and posting videos of themselves posing in ways that highlight their slimness. It feels very gas-lighty.
I appreciate this so much. I feel like I'm going to have to read it a few times to really process it, because it feels like you've articulated a lot of my own thoughts and questions and feelings around this. (Which is to say, very unresolved!) Thank you for sharing, and I'd love to read more thoughts on this!
I really struggle with the normalization of weight loss drugs. The ads are everywhere and celebrities are popping up day after day looking gaunt. As someone who is currently trying to recover from extremely disordered eating, it's a gigantic struggle to choose to work with a professional to heal these tendencies and confront some ugly coping mechanisms and ideas about my body when the drug to get me to the body I've always wanted is right in front of me. I'm not convinced that using glp-1s as a weight loss drug is a viable long term solution as its long term success is dependent on constant access to the drug. I also can not fathom the damage it is doing to its user's metabolism and digestion, especially without the guidance of an attentive physician. Beauty standards are a pendulum, and in five years I'm sure being "thick" will be back in style, but for now I think it's scary that fat people, and even mid-size people, are speedily losing visibility in pop culture. I wish that pop culture figures would think twice before reaching towards the syringe and think about the young women who are watching.
There is a concern with losing muscle mass on them, which is already a concern as you age. I don’t understand why that isn’t mentioned as a risk more often.
This article scratched an itch for me. With everyone talking about everyone’s weight from Ariana Grande and Lizzo, I try to figure out what is “sending a message” and what is that person’s personal relationship with their body, which may or may not be fucked up.
Thank you for giving words to that confusion and how the system is whack in every way possible. Much love to you!
I've been thinking a lot about this issue as well, so much so that I wrote about it on my own Substack recently.
As you can tell, I'm pretty upfront about my feelings on the topic, which I know is kind of an unpopular take at the moment. I struggle with the dilemma as well, and yet I want to be real about how bad it all feels.
I have worked so hard to be fat positive, as I have gained weight in middle age, and trying to discard the negativity of my childhood. I've found doctors who support me, whatever I weigh, and some who are plus sized themselves. I've left doctors who I felt were not supportive and one, even disgusted by my weight. Just when I think I'm in a very good place, along come the weight loss drugs. And my doctor is recommending them for health reasons. Zepbound is approved for sleep apnea, which I have, and she thinks it will also help my cholesterol, which is very high due to genetics. I have also heard that for anxiety, the drugs can turn off the food noise always buzzing around.
I have never wanted to go on them to alter my weight. But should I go on them to positively impact my health? My insurance company's refusal of coverage, for now, has meant that I will not be able to afford it. But in the future, if I can afford it and/or it is covered, do I want to start taking something that I might have to take for life (even a maintenance dose)? Do I want to take something with side effects? What will it mean to lose a taste for the foods I love, particularly when I travel and want to try new/good restaurants? I really don't know the answer.
I strongly believe in "not my body, not my business; not your body, not your business." But it gets very complicated, as you recognize, when their body *is* a business. For now, I stick to the people who talk about fat and the challenges of being a fat person in the world (like you, Kate Manne, and Virginia Sole-Smith) and some of the fashion folks, like Corinne Fay and Virginia also. I think what they are telling me is solid, regardless of their weight, and I believe they have proved their credentials sufficiently. If I see their credibility slipping, I will probably unfollow, however. I think you're right that there's not much you can beyond that.
My first thought was that I can’t wait to see how they spin it when they inevitably gain the weight back again. That body positivity will still come in handy yet.
I don't want to give up the pleasure of food, of eating for both nutrition and taste. I've never bought that idea that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. It is a perversion of what it means to be alive.
Watching the larger models and influencers disappear feels like we are returning to that notion that skinny is all that matters but with a new punitive angle. If you don't take the drugs you are behind the times or out of fashion or poor. I am glad I am old, the pressure on young women of size must be awful.
“Until we start thinking outside of the silo of our individual choices…we’ll never truly transcend the implications of what it means to exist in any kind of body.” THIS!! Formerly fat influencers use “individual choice” as their go-to defense (“I’m just doing what I want and not FORCING anyone else to lose weight!!!!!”) instead of exploring what it means for their community. It’s this delusion that they exist in a vacuum, when OF COURSE there are repercussions for the body neutrality movement.
The hardest part to all of this is the fat community online is so small compared the presence of thin influencers across all content genres. We are all seeing the same people shrinking, talking about how they would have been thinner all along if not for insulin resistance or other issues that Ozempic and the like now have “fixed”. It’s like they were stuck in a fat body and they have been saved from it.
What did all that talking about body positivity mean then? Absolutely nothing to them and those of us seeing it, we are betrayed yet again by people we trusted. Not that they owe us fatness, but they do owe us something. They owe us not shaming the fat folks they leaned on for many years for community and compensation, they owe us not giggling about how they can wipe their asses now and wooooowwww they can finally breathe AND constantly posting about how it’s so much easier to shop now!!! It’s pathetic, immature and shows that they were really always pretending to like or support fat bodies.
Whenever we tie a systemic issue to personal choice, we run into this dilemma. I think it's broadly akin to the idea of choice feminism, which I will point blank say DOES NOT exist. This analogy is a very new train of thought for me, so this won't be 100% on point, but essentially, choice feminism says that because you are making a choice, it doesn't matter what the choice is; it's feminist to even have a choice to make. When you think about it, saying, "I chose to take my husband's name, so I'm a feminist" makes very little sense. A choice doesn't indicate feminism; there are things we do that are feminist and things we do that are not, and it's important to understand that.
Bodily autonomy IS paramount, but choosing to use a drug to lose weight erases the body posi/fat acceptance/fat pol part of the equation. It is categorically not fat positive to use drugs to lose weight. Whatever the reason for the choice!
I 100% do not think it's wrong to exercise your body autonomy any way you see fit. I have 17 tattoos and over a dozen piercings. No one gets to have a say in that; it's my body and I'll decorate it the way I see fit. If someone wants to use drugs to lose weight, I have no say in that. But it is a choice that puts paid to any further claim of body positivity, fat positivity, or fat acceptance. It actively upholds the current political system that marginalizes fat people.
Back to the choice feminism analogy: my sister took her husband's name upon marriage. I did not. I don't love her less, but I do think it was an anti-feminist decision and that she can't call it a feminist decision simply because it was hers to make. (She does not, fwiw! She readily admits that it upholds a patriarchal system.)
On the other hand, if I followed a vocal feminist on social media who suddenly chose to become a tradwife, I'm not sure I'd say I felt betrayed, but I would not think she was a feminist anymore, and I would 100% stop following her. So too with fat influencers who lose weight as a choice.
It’s all so complicated, and also social media polarizes and toxifies any healthy conversation about anything. So this especially is gonna be complicated AF to discuss (as you said).
I’m not active on social, nor do I follow many influencers so I haven’t noticed the shift. But one of my favorite substacks shared that they are on a GLP-1, and their journey (noting they are already thin).
And my biggest takeaway was “wow, that’s A LOT of negatives to experience and it isn’t sustainable long term anyway”.
I’m not gonna judge people for their personal choices, but it won’t be something I choose…for numerous reasons.
I’ll stick to being active because it makes my body feel good and strong, and eat what makes my body feel good — and continuing to work on my own self image. Some days I feel strong and sexy, and some days I’m like “ahh I wish I didn’t have cellulite on my upper arms!!”. 🤷♀️
This is exactly how I have been feeling. It is so complicated! I have always been a bigger girl, and now in my 40s I am as fat as I have ever been. Everything seems to be harder, more tiring, and painful. I am in eating disorder recovery and this is part of why I have gained more weight recently. I cannot sacrifice the progress I have made there to try and make myself thinner. Maybe I would have less chronic pain and therefore better energy, but I also have always associated exercise with trying to lose weight, thanks to growing up in the 80s and 90s. It's complicated! I wish it was easier to exist.
We are same except I’m in my 50s. Recently my friend who lost weight on GLP-1 asked me …something to the effect of “why didn’t I love myself enough to allow myself to be a healthier weight”. I….still don’t even know what to do with a thought like that. No, I don’t love my body. I have a terrible and previously dangerous relationship with it. Weight loss drugs aren’t going to “fix” that, and anyway it’s my understanding they make your appetite go away. I can do that the hell of a lot cheaper by not eating. It took 9 weeks in treatment for me to get an appetite back. They told me they had me on the lowest safe plan to try to make it turn back on, and they were super concerned that it wasn’t. (When it finally did, it was fierce)
I’m continually disappointed at this sort of thing. My own friends, my own family all of whom say they love me and aren’t known for crummy behavior.
What I also find pretty hard to understand is that some people who were body positive, plus size influencers, but who have lost a lot of weight, are still calling themselves plus-size. Still saying "we" and "us" when talking to their fat audience. And yet posting photos in brands they previously shunned for not being inclusive and posting videos of themselves posing in ways that highlight their slimness. It feels very gas-lighty.
This was so beautifully spelled out... I wrestle with this one the most:
Isn’t a person’s choice to change their body their business? But wait… didn’t they just spend the last 5-10 years making their body a business?
Thank you as always for sharing your thoughts with us <3
I appreciate this so much. I feel like I'm going to have to read it a few times to really process it, because it feels like you've articulated a lot of my own thoughts and questions and feelings around this. (Which is to say, very unresolved!) Thank you for sharing, and I'd love to read more thoughts on this!
I really struggle with the normalization of weight loss drugs. The ads are everywhere and celebrities are popping up day after day looking gaunt. As someone who is currently trying to recover from extremely disordered eating, it's a gigantic struggle to choose to work with a professional to heal these tendencies and confront some ugly coping mechanisms and ideas about my body when the drug to get me to the body I've always wanted is right in front of me. I'm not convinced that using glp-1s as a weight loss drug is a viable long term solution as its long term success is dependent on constant access to the drug. I also can not fathom the damage it is doing to its user's metabolism and digestion, especially without the guidance of an attentive physician. Beauty standards are a pendulum, and in five years I'm sure being "thick" will be back in style, but for now I think it's scary that fat people, and even mid-size people, are speedily losing visibility in pop culture. I wish that pop culture figures would think twice before reaching towards the syringe and think about the young women who are watching.
There is a concern with losing muscle mass on them, which is already a concern as you age. I don’t understand why that isn’t mentioned as a risk more often.
this could’ve been pulled right out of my thoughts and onto paper. thank you for sharing this ❤️
This article scratched an itch for me. With everyone talking about everyone’s weight from Ariana Grande and Lizzo, I try to figure out what is “sending a message” and what is that person’s personal relationship with their body, which may or may not be fucked up.
Thank you for giving words to that confusion and how the system is whack in every way possible. Much love to you!
I've been thinking a lot about this issue as well, so much so that I wrote about it on my own Substack recently.
As you can tell, I'm pretty upfront about my feelings on the topic, which I know is kind of an unpopular take at the moment. I struggle with the dilemma as well, and yet I want to be real about how bad it all feels.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rebeccabodenheimer/p/mourning-the-ozempification-of-hollywood?r=eyrd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I have worked so hard to be fat positive, as I have gained weight in middle age, and trying to discard the negativity of my childhood. I've found doctors who support me, whatever I weigh, and some who are plus sized themselves. I've left doctors who I felt were not supportive and one, even disgusted by my weight. Just when I think I'm in a very good place, along come the weight loss drugs. And my doctor is recommending them for health reasons. Zepbound is approved for sleep apnea, which I have, and she thinks it will also help my cholesterol, which is very high due to genetics. I have also heard that for anxiety, the drugs can turn off the food noise always buzzing around.
I have never wanted to go on them to alter my weight. But should I go on them to positively impact my health? My insurance company's refusal of coverage, for now, has meant that I will not be able to afford it. But in the future, if I can afford it and/or it is covered, do I want to start taking something that I might have to take for life (even a maintenance dose)? Do I want to take something with side effects? What will it mean to lose a taste for the foods I love, particularly when I travel and want to try new/good restaurants? I really don't know the answer.
I strongly believe in "not my body, not my business; not your body, not your business." But it gets very complicated, as you recognize, when their body *is* a business. For now, I stick to the people who talk about fat and the challenges of being a fat person in the world (like you, Kate Manne, and Virginia Sole-Smith) and some of the fashion folks, like Corinne Fay and Virginia also. I think what they are telling me is solid, regardless of their weight, and I believe they have proved their credentials sufficiently. If I see their credibility slipping, I will probably unfollow, however. I think you're right that there's not much you can beyond that.
“if the structural integrity of the truth only stays upright thanks to the load-bearing of what we want to be true” is such a lovely lovely sentence.
My first thought was that I can’t wait to see how they spin it when they inevitably gain the weight back again. That body positivity will still come in handy yet.