What We See When We See a Woman’s Body

These days, whenever I walk into a gym or a fitness studio, I find myself remembering what it was like to be 18.

Back then, nearly two decades ago, I was admitted to an inpatient clinic for severe eating disorders. I was skeletal. My periods had stopped. One of the cruelest things about anorexia is that by the time your body starts pleading with you for help, you're well past the point of being able to listen.

It took me several years to get better: two hospital stays and a lot of therapy.  

Recovery is strange. I can go years without thinking about that version of myself, and then suddenly she's waiting for me in places I don't expect: in a changing room mirror, on the mat next to mine at a Pilates class, in a photograph, in the body of a celebrity everyone has decided it’s OK to discuss. This week, as you’ve probably seen by now, that celebrity was the pop star and actor Ariana Grande.

As someone who writes about women and gender for a living, and as someone who once lived with the illness so many people now feel comfortable diagnosing Grande with, I've found it almost impossible not to think about 18-year-old me. I’ve also found myself not really wanting to say anything at all. Surely more noise is the last thing we need. But the paradoxes at play are too revealing to ignore.

When it comes to women's bodies, we've become fluent in the language of acceptance while remaining deeply devoted to the aesthetics of thinness. But does that fluency belie an undercurrent of discomfort? We say the words, but do we really mean them? On social media, we celebrate body positivity, diversity and self-love. We also celebrate GLP-1s, “Ozempic Girl Summer,” “what I eat in a day” videos, and the thrill of fitting into that old pair of jeans. 

We tell ourselves we believe that health comes in all shapes and sizes while the global market for GLP-1s has ballooned. According to one analysis, by 2030, it could be worth $200 billion. And no, it’s not just available for people who can get a medical prescription — pills are being flogged to anyone who wants to lose just a few extra pounds regardless of how slim they already are.

I have no interest in speculating about whether Grande is ill or healthy. None of us should. But I can't stop thinking about what our collective reaction to her body reveals about our culture.

Every time a celebrity becomes visibly thinner, the same contradiction resurfaces. We insist that thinness is dangerous. We express ostensible concern. But beneath all that concern there’s an uncomfortable truth: We still read thinness as success. We may worry when a woman appears too skinny, but that’s never stopped us from rewarding skinniness. Dare I say, beneath all of that concern might there even be a quiet nugget of envy? 

A skinny body is still the body around which fashion is designed. A skinny body is still the body Instagram's algorithm serves back to me. (An algorithm I didn't even realize I was training.) A skinny body is still the body we associate with discipline, athleticism, power, beauty, desirability and, yes, wealth. Despite decades of “body positivity” and endless conversations about self-acceptance, a skinny body continues to function as cultural currency. Society says one thing but gravitates toward another.

A few years ago, I wanted to believe we were making progress. I thought we had finally begun to loosen the waif’s grip on beauty: on a standard established by the cinched-waisted Victorians and the flappers, immortalized by Twiggy, and fortified by Kate Moss's heroin chic of the 1990s. 

Athleisure brands started making plus-size clothes. We all loved Lizzo. As an ideal, that archetypal waif felt, if not gone, then at least challenged.

But then along came Ozempic. The speed with which these drugs were embraced, not just as medical interventions, but as aspirational lifestyle accessories, made it impossible to ignore the fact that the old beliefs and  standards were still very much on top.

If you're not convinced, here's a simple litmus test: Would we be having this conversation about Ariana Grande if she had gained, rather than lost, a significant amount of weight? Would headlines be filled with compassionate concern? Or would we worry she’d simply lost it, lost control — her body simply another punchline? We reserve our sympathy for women who become too thin, while women who become larger are far more likely to be judged, mocked and ridiculed than pitied.

When I see conversations like this unfold, I don't wonder whether Ariana Grande has anorexia. I wonder how many 18-year-olds are looking at images of her and layering those images over their own lives. I wonder how many are absorbing the lesson that becoming frighteningly thin is still one of the fastest ways to become culturally significant. And that is nothing short of devastating.

I, for one, am glad Grande is taking a step back from public life. I hope it’s something she’s decided to do in the interest of her own wellbeing. Beyond that, I have nothing more to say about her.

As for me, recovery taught me how to live again. What it didn't prepare me for was the realization that I would recover into a culture that insists it has changed, while clinging to the very ideals that made so many of us so sick. 

Recovery, I've learned, is possible. Cultural evolution, well, that’s another story.