"are you on glp-1?"
why are we so obsessed with thinness? and other musings on weight and diet culture
if you, like me, grew up in the nineties, you’re well-versed in the language of diet culture.
in words like fat-free (if you cannot find fat-free, low-fat will do). in the era of atkins, and weight watchers points, and ‘bars’ for breakfast. if you, like me, grew up in the nineties, you plastered your walls with magazine clippings of ultra-skinny models, models so thin that they were practically pre-pubescent, their breasts non-existent, their clavicles so sharp they could cut you. if you, like me, grew up in the nineties, you were indoctrinated into a society that told you, everywhere and in every way: thinner is better.
there was kate moss: nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.
there was spray-on salad dressing, designed to ensure you didn’t add too many calories to your lettuce.
there was the phrase, a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.
there was the grapefruit diet, the cabbage soup diet, the slimfast diet, the zone diet.
there was my grandmother, who said things like, when i was a dress model in the garment district, i survived on 1/2 cup of buttermilk a day (this is WILD thing to say. WILD!). this grandmother loved me, but she loved me most when i was thin, which—by age 10, i wasn’t anymore.
there was my mother, who topped out at 5’1” and who, as a lifelong member of weight watchers, for a time measured everything she ate on a little kitchen scale.
if you, like me, grew up in the nineties, you were probably taught to hate your body.
you were probably taught to hate it regardless of what size it was, but you were probably taught to hate it more if you were not thin.
i have spent the bulk of my 38 years on this earth being entirely too concerned with my body. there, i said it.
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