We’re all obsessed with being thin again, but I refuse to shrink my body

Yes, I will be taking it personally

We had taken so many steps, it seemed. We had learnt from the noughties and its fat-shaming tabloids, diet pills, laxative powders and crash diets. We realised how much the mentally of that time had negatively and permanently damaged our relationships with our bodies and food. We started seeing different sizes in the media. The steps were small, but they were there. Carefully, I started hoping that, for the first time in my lifetime, we were seeing progress: Were we really on the way to escaping diet culture’s grip?

And then, faster than you can say ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, it was like we had rolled the dice and lost, society’s pawn had landed on the ‘Back to diet culture prison!’ square and we were back where we started. I’m not sure if the super thin ideal made its reappearance first and weight loss injections were offered as the quickest way to get there soon after or if it was the other way around, but it doesn’t really matter. The point is that it was undeniable: Thin was back. It had never really left of course, but those of us who had started believing that maybe we were slowly on the way to creating space for different sizes, were about to learn their lesson.

People are doing what?!

I remember the very first moment I heard about weight loss injections. My friend told me someone she knew was injecting a diabetes medicine in order to lose weight and I was beyond shocked. This sounded so extreme to me. I could not imagine how a perfectly healthy person would voluntarily inject themselves with anything if they didn’t absolutely need to, let alone to lose a couple of kilos. I thought it sounded mad. Not even one year later, it was everywhere.

Let me get something out of the way first: I know that discussions around GLP-1 injections can get heated. I’m not blaming anyone individually for wanting to lose weight. After all, we live in a society where we constantly get the message that being thin is the only way and that gaining weight is the worst thing that can possibly happen to a person. The unfortunate truth is that you get treated better when you’re thin, so I cannot blame you for wanting to be. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I’m neutral about weight loss injections.

I’ve heard stories from people who say that it has helped them obsess less about food and that they have a healthy relationship with food for the first time, which I believe, but the questions I always ask myself is: Is this a sustainable option? Is this something you can do for the rest of your life? Does it fix the underlying issues you have with food or body image? So many people stopped taking it and immediately gained the weight back plus some extra, which so many studies have shown is exactly what happens in almost all cases of extreme weight loss. So to me, this is just another temporary solution that will have temporary results.

The scary thing to me is how heavily this product is marketed and how taking it is encouraged, and not even just for people who ‘need it’ because they are considered overweight. A friend with an average body told me that her GP said out of nowhere: ‘It’s a shame that your BMI is so low because I would love to put you on Ozempic.’ So even according to your outdated system that already classifies many average or sometimes even thin people as overweight this person’s weight is healthy, yet as a medical professional you STILL encourage this? When your number one concern should be that person’s health? When there’s absolutely no need to take this and you know that there are possible side-effects? Words fail me to describe how fucked up that is. Also, when you hear stories like this, imagine how people who are actually fat get treated when they go to their doctor.

If I didn’t know any better I would think that the gigantic amount of marketing behind this product, the numerous content creators who get asked if they want to promote it, and the fact that my local NHS practice is decorated with posters and ads, means that the main goal of this product is to make money, not help people be healthier. Luckily I do know better, because that would be insane…

Another friend told me about someone in her life who had suicidal ideations while they were on Ozempic, felt so much better during the couple of weeks they went without it, but still decided to take it again. That’s how obsessed we are with being thin.

Where is our empathy?

Like I said, I cannot blame an individual for partaking in diet culture when I only escaped it a couple of years ago myself. But I would be lying if I said that it doesn’t get to me. As fat people we are surrounded by people who would rather be depressed, starved and unhealthy than look like us. And then we get told that we’re not allowed to take that personally. It’s difficult to remember that everyone is on their own journey and that this is not an attack against me while I’m constantly reminded of the fact that my body is other people’s worst nightmare.

Let’s say we took the statement It’s okay that you’re fat, it’s just that I would absolutely hate myself if I was fat and I would do anything to never have to be fat and to be honest I would probably rather be dead than be fat and we replaced the word ‘fat’ with any other marginalised group, many people would have an issue with that, right? It would make us uncomfortable and we would think that saying those things wasn’t acceptable, right? Yet fat people get directly or indirectly told this several times a day and are supposed to just take that, remember that this is just someone who has their own personal experiences, and have empathy. But where is our empathy?

Where is my empathy when I’m going about my life and I randomly get hit with a fatphobic comment? Where is my empathy when I open TikTok and see that people are using a filter that makes them look chubby as motivation to stay dieting so that they never end up looking like that. Where is my empathy when yet another public figure who for years claimed to love their bigger body now tells everyone that JUST KIDDING, they actually hated themselves and they were so depressed because they were so ugly and look at their new and improved hot bod now!!! Where is my empathy when I’m in the office and thin co-workers start telling me how much they hate their bodies now that they’ve gained some weight when I’m quite literally twice their size? Obviously I’m not saying that other marginalised groups don’t have to deal with horrible discrimination. I am saying that fatphobia is one of the few kinds of discrimination that is still accepted and normalised by almost everyone.

I know that people who say those things usually don’t even think about it. Fatphobic and diet language is so ingrained to the point where (mainly) women feel like they can’t enjoy a soda or a biscuit without having to explain themselves, like how they ‘know they’re being bad’ or how they ‘skipped a meal so they are allowed to enjoy this now’. But it’s not because it’s normalised that it’s okay. It’s time that people started realising the effect those words have and I’m actually completely fucking done pretending that I’m okay with it.

Yes to inclusivity! As long as we can still hate fatness xx

I recently decided to unfollow Lizzo after she posted that she ‘finally reached her goal weight’. Lizzo played a massive part in my journey towards self acceptance and self love. Seeing a fat woman live her life like that, perform in outfits that always seemed reserved for thin people, have fat dancers, not to mention her lyrics that were all about loving your body at any size…it meant SO much to me. I’m not saying that if you’ve ever been fat or a ‘fat icon’ that you can’t lose weight. I’m not even saying that you can’t WANT to lose weight. There are a million reasons why someone’s body might change. But to actively celebrate it as a positive thing in a climate that is already so fragile? When it seems like we’ve taken a thousand steps back in terms of body diversity or positivity? When fat people, who Lizzo always claimed to care so much about, already feel so incredibly betrayed by everyone who has turned their backs on them the second Ozempic chic became the new trend? That’s wild to me.

Around the same time Jonathan Van Ness posted what I can only describe as promotion for weight loss injections. I’ve always liked them, but again, to proudly share how unhappy and ugly you felt when you were bigger and how fantastic these injections have been when fatphobia is on the rise? Recently a Vogue commercial paid tribute to the musical Hairspray, one of the few musicals that has several fat main characters. The problem? There was not one fat person in sight. Columnist Rebecca Shaw wrote in the Guardian that ‘Normal, nice, thoughtful, politically aware, outspoken people seem to care about inclusivity in all areas – except this one.’ That describes it perfectly.

On top of that, there is a sad irony to seeing people talk about intersectional feminism and caring about being anti-racist when fatphobia is literally rooted in racism. The message that thin is the ideal was invented by oppressors to validate white superiority. There’s an incredible book called Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fatphobia by Sabrina Strings that explains this way better than I ever could. Seeing otherwise open-minded, politically aware people preach kindness and inclusivity whilst at the same time also share the message that fat is bad would be funny if it wasn’t so devastating.

Stop pretending your ‘health journey’ is about health

If I could remove one term from everyone’s dictionary, it would be health journey. Because it’s just never about health, is it? Sooner or later there is always a before-and-after picture, or a post about how much better they now feel in their new and improved bodies. Terms like ‘health’ or ‘fitness journey’ just feel like diet culture’s latest rebrand, a way to talk about ‘being healthy’ when deep down we all know that what we really want is to be thin. And of course you could argue that surely people should be allowed to share their own experiences or feelings without the pressure of having to represent bigger values? Can’t one person have their own individual health goals that, yes, include weight loss, without it being considered an attack on marginalised group? Sure, but I don’t need to hear about it. We unfortunately live in a society where any type of positive weight loss content contributes to the message that bigger is bad and thin is the ideal and that losing weight is always a good thing.

My favourite is when former body positivity influencers lose weight and then attack their own audience that got them where they are, some going as far as saying things like ‘I’m sorry I don’t want to be ugly and obese anymore’. ‘I don’t owe anyone anything’, they say, ‘People are angry because I want to be healthy’. Are people angry because you want to be healthy, or are people angry because you monetised the shit out of your self love content when it was convenient to do so, only to now do the same thing with your weight lo health journey content by saying that you actually hated yourself before and that the entire body positivity beliefs you built your platform on were a lie? Or are people angry because you lied about the reasons for your changing body, sold people all kinds of equipment, courses and tools because you claimed those products single-handedly got you there, to eventually admit you never used any of that and it was injections or surgery after all?

Again, I’m not saying that if you’re a fat public figure you’re not allowed to lose weight. I also know that unfortunately those people are often forced to comment on their changing bodies because their followers demand an explanation. But I follow several content creators who have lost a significant amount of weight and have made it clear that they don’t think that they are healthier or more beautiful now than they were before and that those comments actually make them uncomfortable. They also didn’t lie and scam people out of money. It’s really not that hard.

Fatphobia is one of the most accepted forms of discrimination in our day and age and it’s because it can be practiced under this guise of ‘just wanting people to be healthy’. But if you were to ask women if they would rather be healthy and fat or thin but not necessarily healthy, I bet you that the majority would pick the latter. A thin person with a lifestyle that is ten times unhealthier than a fat person’s will never face the same judgement. They will never get told that their lifestyle makes it acceptable for people to exclude them, bully them or treat them like an inferior human being. So please, for the love of God, stop acting like fatphobia has anything to do with health.

I refuse to shrink my body

The Ozempic craze and our newfound obsession with thinness has been heartbreaking to witness. It feels like all the steps we’ve taken in terms of body diversity and positivity have been for nothing. Maybe they were all a lie. Stores that sold my size suddenly don’t anymore. Marketing campaigns that featured plus size people have gone back to exclusively featuring size zero. Weight loss content is impossible to escape on social media, on the telly, on the tube, at work, in our personal lives, at home.

I’ve heard people talk about how it’s not a coincidence that the pressure on women to shrink increases when fascism is on the rise. Society wants us to be hungry and weak so we don’t have the energy to focus or act on what is truly going on. We want women to take up the least amount of space we possibly can. And we’re all just doing it. We’re spending our entire lives trying to fit a trend that changes all the fucking time anyway. Women’s bodies go in and out of fashion and we don’t question it. We just keep starving ourselves and shaming each other.

Even for me who basically hasn’t had bad body image days for years, the noise gets loud sometimes. Sometimes part of me wonders if I’m wrong. If I’m just not getting what everyone else seems to think is logical.

But I have worked too hard to get to where I am. I refuse to go back. I’m working on my mental and physical health and that’s all that matters. It gets to me sometimes, but then I remember that escaping diet culture has been the healthiest and most liberating thing I have ever done. I remember it when I wear clothes because they feel good and not because they’re ‘flattering’. When I sit down at a restaurant and don’t feel the need to put my jacket on my lap to cover my belly. When I realise how much I’m looking forward to my beach holiday where I will get to wear my cute new bikini. When I’m in the mood for ice cream so I get some without thinking about how I will punish myself for it later. When I eat what my body asks for instead of thinking about food in terms of good and bad. When it’s 30 degrees outside and I don’t wear a blazer and tights to cover my arms and legs. When I realise it’s been years since I took naps so I could skip meals and avoid the pangs of hunger. When my boyfriend hugs me from behind and tells me that he loves my belly and I don’t flinch. In those moments I remember it was worth it. I’m not going back. No, I may never become thin. I choose to live instead.

Anti-Ozempic propaganda

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