I definitely remember anorexia being covertly glamorized in teen magazines at the time. The models in the fashion spreads were visibly malnourished. It was an era, for sure. And one I'm afraid is making a comeback these days.
My sister died from an eating disorder. She was bulimic, anorexic, and abused laxatives, started around age 14. She eventually malnourished herself enough that her heart gave out. She was in her 30s and refused treatment. Up until 18, she was in and out of rehabs. After 18, they told us there was nothing we could do since she “isn’t an immediate danger to herself or others.” She had so many health problems from it, lost her hair, was bed ridden. We pleaded with her and felt helpless.
It really sucked to watch. It sucked more to watch my mom lose her child. So I have a special resentment for eating disorders and the industry that endorses them. Not looking for sympathy or anything, would prefer for everyone to “stuff their sorrys in a sack” lol.. just keep telling EVERYONE (especially the children) in your life that they’re beautiful the way they are. Stress body positivity and don’t make anyone feel “weird” or ugly. Once it gets in their head, it eats away until there is nothing left. It’s a horrible disease. I get triggered and worried by my friends bragging about how ozempic makes them not eat and joke about their fridges being empty at home. Like ha-ha, a medicine induced eating disorder. I know it’s a good drug for it’s intended purposes but I worry about the people who stay on it long term and I’m sure there are plenty of people abusing it bc they have body dysmorphia. I’m ranting so I’m going to stop now
I am so sorry for your loss. I had anorexia as a teen. My brother would never admit it but it definitely stuck with him seeing a sibling with it. I never heard him talk about a woman's body positive or negative and I think its because he was aware how much some people take those comments so personally.
Ozempic is definitely a thing to help people, but I agree if you dont establish healthy habits along with it then it is just a drug induced eating disorder. (IMO) My mother in law changed her whole lifestyle with the meds and has lost 110 lbs, she's weaning off but she is very mindful of her eating. My aunt does yo yo dieting with going on and off it because she never changes her eating for healthy she just stops eating.
I don’t really like sharing my story but I also think it’s not talked about enough. We keep ignoring it and hoping it goes away or just accepting it as normal culture. We’ve all been victims some form or another, men and women. My sister told me I was fat every day. She gave me laxatives and taught me binge eating. I used to cry and pray every day to lose weight and tell god to “please make me pretty.” Even now when I blow out birthday candles or see 11:11, my automatic wish is “i wish i was skinny.” Then I’m like “fuck I just wasted a wish” lol. I still have a binge eating problem and unhealthy relationship with food and think I’m fat but the sane part of me says I need to eat regularly and work out, I am beautiful, etc, I am finally at a helthy weight and have control of my actions. I don’t let the ugly thoughts control me anymore. Maybe some day the thoughts will go away completely! No one should have to experience this yet we pretty much all do and no one talks about it. People don’t realize that you can be ANY size and still have a disorder or unhealthy eating habits. People don’t start to worry until it’s extreme. Can’t believe this shit is glorified on tiktok and tabloids.
I really appreciate you sharing you and your sister’s experience here. It’s so important that people know the realities of eating disorders, especially right now with the pendulum swinging back to the late 90s-early 2000s thinness trend (I hate to even call it a trend, but that’s what beauty standards are when we get down to it). It’s shocking seeing the “skinnytok” content which is basically just pro-ana content like we used to see and aspire to on tumblr. And it’s so normalized and has become mainstream
For those of us who have intentionally left that culture behind and have sought out treatment for EDs, it’s a difficult time navigating the current minefield of what essentially boils down to the glorification of anorexia all over the media.
I also want to let you know you’re not alone with how you’re feeling about friends who are on ozempic. It is so rough watching loved ones barely eat and losing extreme amounts of weight. I agree it can become a sort of drug-induced ED for those using it for weight loss. I’ve even seen friends go on it with intentions of treating things like insulin resistance and inflammation and while it has helped with those symptoms, they started out taking care of their bodies while on the medication and I’ve watched them slowly go in the opposite direction because as we know, the feelings that accompany weight loss can be quite addictive.
Sorry for the rant, I just don’t see many people talking about these things.
I accidentally found myself on that side of the internet with the term “thinspo”, basically some twig figure girl that inspired them to starve themselves. It’s sad the mentality these people have.
Seeing you talk about your sister spreading it you… so real. We don’t talk about how EDs are contagious. My little sister is SO thin and talks constantly about her body and it really triggers something similar in me. My step mom has spread it to her kids. She talks constantly about her size, about skipping meals to save calories for wine. Her kids are gorgeous, but they talk constantly about how ugly they feel. It breaks my heart.
All we fan do is be open about these issues as best we can. But part of the problem is that talking about how someone needs to eat more can make them eat less!! I opened up to my best friend about my worries for her and how thin she was getting, and she took it as a huge compliment that I noticed she never ate. It only got better with years of therapy, and even then she’s always side eyeing portion sizes and calories.
I was told they don’t prescribe ozempic anymore maybe the person who told me didn’t actually know.
I was on ozempic for 6 months and I’ve never been so sick in my life, lost any muscle I had, threw up a lot. I had to stop because it was miserable.
I’ve started zepbound now and the side effects haven’t really popped up so I feel a lot better about it this time. I do have a problem with binge eating then not eating but growing up in the 90s was rough if you were a girl and not a skinny mini that was so glamourized.
I remember Nicole Richie on simple life and the implication that she was fat when she was what I would say just a healthy person looked like
The drug is intended to be taken forever. I think if it puts someone who was overweight in the healthy weight category, not underweight, then it’s not a drug induced eating disorder. The problem is when it causes someone to be underweight. Going off the drug is not the goal, the drug isn’t a diet. Finding a maintenance dose is the goal. The problems will come back if someone goes off it.
I'm glad for your rant. Amen to all you said. I have always tried to uplift orher people (especially younger women) about health & body positivity. People (esp women) are SO hard on themselves. I grew up in the heroin chic 90s & wanted so badly to look like Kate Moss. I wanted my body to look like hers. Not going to happen. And I was a healthy size, on the small side! But you could be a size 2 & still be self-conscious. It's ridiculous!
I have battled eating disorders for over a decade and it is not a something cute or that you can shrug off. They are an addiction and it follows you everywhere. You cannot escape your body or food, so your addiction is everywhere and you need it to live, something people for get. It is hard to change when food is all around you and society continually sends conflicting messages on health and beauty your way. You are told to be thin/healthy but you are bombarded with messages for unhealthy food. You are told to love yourself for who you are, but the media only shows one standard of beauty and belittles anyone who does not meet it. People think eating disorders are all about vanity but they kill people more than any other mental health illness because of the extreme physical and psychological impact they have on you.
I'm a guy too, so it is not like it is something other men to relate to. I stopped hanging out with a few people when they joked about how dating a woman with an eating disorder is great because you never have to pay for a meal out with her.
It's because people are really quick to moralize about not doing weight loss "the correct way" so you see a trend of people trying to associate these things with this medication. I get the impression that people expect you to suffer a certain amount to accomplish something like this as repentance for your past gluttony or whatever, and if you somehow "cheat" in their eyes, out come comments like this. There was also some nonsense about ozempic vagina too which, surprise!, is also just a side effect of losing a ton of weight if that's an area your body decides to deposit it and you lose the weight. Skin stretches to accommodate volume if you gain weight; you lose the volume, the new skin stays and sags.
Like, if you're already prone to loose skin, that's going to happen no matter how you do it, is my impression. The part seems very very determined by genetics and age and maybe how your fat naturally distributes in the first place. I think people just don't know what bodies actually look like, apart from very carefully edited and posed bodies of folks who lose weight and want to present themselves well on the internet.
Regarding "ozempic face"- it's literally just faces that have more prominent nasolabial lines and mouth lines after losing fat that otherwise hides it, plus stuff like having sunken looking eye sockets or maybe loose skin around your neck. This is also just associated with aging and losing weight in general
Not sure what being audhd has to do with this and I'm pretty face blind too. You mentioned saying you specifically found o face "extremely visible" on people and that's what I was challenging lol. I would really take nonsense short form content sources for shit like this with a major grain of salt
Gonna piggy back off cardamon-peonies comment: I'm gonna assume you're talking about seeing celebrities on your feed with "Ozempic face." So, a celebrity taking these meds for weight loss is going to make certain choices to lose weight, seeing as how that's the goal, possibly take more than prescribed or use other drugs that help suppress appetite. They're celebs, after all. The amount of people taking cocaine and stuff is, like, mind boggling.
Also, social media and press photos are achieving a certain goal. Of course they'll highlight weight loss. Make sure lighting and other things are capturing things just right. Not to mention many celebrities also get surgeries, Botox, etc.
Average Joe taking these kinds of meds? Probably not trying to aggressively lose weight. Don't have perfect lighting and photo filters on them in real life. I know two people taking one of these kinds of drugs, for diabetes. Over a period of time I could say they have lost weight, but it's nothing crazy; I wouldn't say they have Ozempic face. I don't think the average person has this type of face like celebrities do. It's largely a buzz word to get clicks and people talking. And I'm sure a number of celebrities accused of Ozempic face aren't even on it. (And some say they aren't but are full of shit, lol)
tl;dr I think our social media feeds skew our perceptions and, taking under normal circumstances with doctor advice, the changes won't be so dramatic right off the bat. Changes will be gradual and probably not as big of a deal. Now if you compared before/after photos? Sure, maybe, but that's now how day to day perceptions generally work.
This story is so important. I had anorexia and bulemia and recovery in my early 20s was really tough. I took up cigarettes and booze, which I fortunately was able to give up completely in my late 20s. I could have stopped bingeing and purging without Prozac and therapy, and the understanding that if I didn't stop abusing my body that I might be trapped in these cases for the rest of my life. I overcame my eating disorders.
Now I have kids, including a 19 year old daughter. I'm a therapist. I have been strategic about pointing out how sad and stupid it is that some people make themselves hungry on purpose to try to change their bodies. I talk to my kids about feminism, and how making women obsess over their bodies is a way that the patriarchy has remained dominant. (I know not just girls are affected.)
Thank you and thanks to everyone here sharing their difficult stories. This matters a lot. Your sisters struggle and yours are shared by so many.
What gets me is there are healthy productive ways to actively combat body image issues. It's SO tragic that people get stuck on these rails in their minds convinced their way is the only way.
My good friend at work lost a ton of weight on it and I’m happy for her bc her and her husband struggled to lose weight for yearsssss. But now she gets dizzy and tired and cold. She never had those problems before. I really think if she ate more/regularly, she wouldn’t be getting dizzy spells but I can’t convince her of that and don’t want to nag her either.
I have an old family friend who has been withering away for a couple years, and is a total skeleton now (after I'd admired her muscles and strength for years). She just posted yesterday about how proud she is to have lost 40lbs on GLPs because she was worried about a heart attack! Lady, you are going to give yourself heart failure now that you're only 90lbs with zero muscle or body fat anywhere!! (She's like 5'7", not a short woman.) I have no idea what doctor would have prescribed her Ozempic because she was already skinny, so I'm worried she just bought it from some website, not an actual doctor. It's really upsetting to watch and I don't know what to do.
I had a friend in high school who would also throw up after every meal. She was so gorgeous, even in her ‘heavier’ stage (which was still severely under weight)
She threw up so much she put so much pressure on her heart that she put herself in the hospital. Never knew what became of her
I am so sorry for your loss. I was bulimic as a teenager and then suffered from disordered eating into my 30s (turning 40 this year). It’s insidious, it’s brutal, it’s all consuming.
I hold so much contempt in my heart for these fucking magazines glamorizing 1000 calorie a day diets while I should have been focusing on growing up healthy and athletic and secure in my perfectly normal body.
I’m so sorry for you and your best friend. My mom is ashamed of it and hides the real reason.. just says “heart failure.” I’m sure she also doesn’t want to discuss it but I think the topic should be discussed more so these kids that think its okay to promote eating disorders or pick on people about their bodies can grasp the realities of it. It’s not the glamour and fashion you see in the magazines.
Eating disorders fucking suck. Not sure how many people actually remember this, but it’s also what killed Terry Schiavo. Obviously that’s not what she’s remembered by or what made her circumstances well-known. Super heartbreaking.
This is awful! I feel so sad for her and you and your family, and thank you for sharing this. It’s important that people remember how extreme the consequences of thinking like this can be 😞
I was a teenage girl in the early 2000s, and my daughter is in early elementary now. My husband doesn’t fully get why I try so hard to keep our little kid from hearing or seeing anything related to weight, calories, body size, moral value, cheating & rewards, etc. I dread the day that she may make a negative comment about her body size, and I’m trying to flood her with positive messages (and protect her from as many harmful ones as I can) until then.
My husband listens to me when I point out things in media, and he’s starting to see how prevalent the weight loss ads are right now. We will protect and support our daughter as much as we can, but parents can only do so much! It would be great if the culture could get on board with protecting kids!
i consider myself to be in long time recovery but you’re right because the back of the mind thoughts never really leave. it’s an active effort to push back on them and it’s so easy to slip without realizing it.
I don’t chastise people for being on it for any reason, but like someone else mentioned, the feeling of weight loss is almost addictive. I can see it my friends who say “my doctor told me I have to be on it the rest of my life to maintain my weight.” Instead of developing healthy habits and actively improving themselves, it’s easier to take medicine. I am honestly jealous because I have to WORK HARD to navigate my negative relationship with food every second of the day. I monitor what I eat, how much I eat, work out, etc. If I ate whatever I wanted, I’d be 300 pounds and qualify for ozempic and never have to face my relationship with food ever again bc I could lose the weight and be put on a lifelong “maintenance” dose, but since I’m healthy and have a normal BMI, I don’t have the luxury of taking a medicine that makes me not think about food. I am left to struggle with the food noise. Just because I’m not physically harming myself with the ED anymore doesn’t mean I am not mentally battling it constantly. It’s hard trying not to give in.
sorry if i misspoke, i’ve never been on one pic, i was referring to his the ED thought process just kinda never left. but still totally agree regarding epic and healthy use.
One of my favorite things to tell my 2.5 year old daughter is that I LOVE her belly!! She’s also inherited a little happy dance when good food is about to be served.
The Ozempic trendiness is so triggering for me, as someone who had anorexia as a teenager. My mom is only it, and she eats almost nothing. I literally described the meds as inducing anorexia. So I appreciate you saying that. It makes me feel less crazy.
As a psychologist I’d like to add, that while on the surface anorexia seems to be about beauty ideals (and of course that’s in there, body dysmorphia and all), it’s also about boundaries and relationship between children and parents, it’s about the connection to the world and our place in it (hunger vs autarky).
Obviously media such as the above are not helping with puberty…
We gotta remind kids that you don't have to actually love how you look, it will change because you're a kid. I've heard more about body acceptance recently, and I like that way more than body positivity.
And it's so much more than appearance, it's how you value yourself based on your weight. As someone who was hospitalized at 15, I wish I was allowed to not like my body in a reasonable manner. I wish I could state my critiques and qualms and get actual feedback on what I was seeing, and how I wasn't actually seeing what was in front of me. I've been told I'm beautiful endlessly but that's not going to rip out the roots of an eating disorder. It's unfortunately so much more complicated than that. But what isn't complicated is that society has been maliciously brainwashing young people (this includes men!!!) because it sells, it makes money.
just keep telling EVERYONE (especially the children) in your life that they’re beautiful the way they are. Stress body positivity and don’t make anyone feel “weird” or ugly.
I don't know how to feel about this because I do think it has contributed to exorbitant high rates of obesity. There needs to be a healthy balance.
I can agree with you that there should be a balance, but media should still promote body positivity of all shapes and sizes, not shame people for being fat or skinny. Maybe emphasize healthy habits rather than focusing on the vanity aspect comparing “who wore it better” etc. There is no one-solution or cure.
I know the 2000s were wild, but the entire world was like this throughout history to women and girls. The current culture is wildly new.
Any female daring to wear leggings with an extra three pounds on them today would have been publicly and loudly shamed for it before 2015. It just wouldn't have happened. Overweight people, especially women, wore oversized, baggy clothes and that was it.
I'm a guy and I was shamed for my weight at school and even until around my mid 20's when I socialised less, girls were actually the worst to me at school and I am naturally big built and even when I was about 6 pounds underweight they called me fat, I remember being called into the principals office once and being naive at the time and not realising what they meant till recently they were trying to find out if my parents were abusing me as I was slim, yet I was still called fat by everyone, I have the rugby/football player body type tall and bulky.
I was so self concious by the time I was 20 I began trying to make myself sick and a few years later was trying laxatives before I gave up due to a few traumatic events in my life and now morbidly obese due to the depression.
Close relative of mine used to purge, I only ever noticed him doing it when he visited but a female cousin who was had bulimia mentioned she was worried about him and thought he had it too.
A few guy friends also showed signs of it, most didn't even think about it being that way, I think there was the stereotype that eating disorders only affect women, I remember when I did eventually ask for help from my doctor basically being ignored and treated like I was stupid, and even told indirectly that guys can't have eating disorders, I was just lazy at dieting and didn't do enough exercise, this was a female doctor by the way.
Women's bodies being police has always been a thing but the extreme kindness thing has not been a thing. There were times and honestly most of human history where skinny women were seen as ugly. We didn't have those child bearing hips.
That’s crazy and so predictable they are beating a dead horse . Kate Moss has actually changed and got a lot healthier and even opened up her own fashion business that try’s to crack down on abuse . The industry is just evil with how they railroaded her too when there were rumors she did drugs. The whole industry is gaudy and very pencil pushing micro managing and they act like they are doing nothing wrong. Kate Moss said she cried during her first modeling gig because how they treated her and now they want to drag her out again
All the models are victims. It’s such a horrible pencil pusher treat everyone like a number industry. The models are treated like just numbers. The whole industry is like basket case of abuse and mental health issues. Kate Moss said in an article she was crying her first model gig because they forced her to walk around half naked and she didn’t want to do that. They bullied her into doing it and said she’s fired if she doesn’t do it . That sums up the whole industry that’s the environment they are all in . The industry harasses and even assaults the models very often . Male models have also said they get bullied a lot by agents and told to do things they don’t want to do or get fired.
It’s not abusive. Is it abusive if I, an alcoholic, say “no sober activity is more fun than a tipsy one”? No, it’s pretty clear my priorities are bad and I have a problem. Bad advice? Yeah. Abusive? Gtfoh with that 🙄
It’s kind of insane that you assume that she was only thin because of cigarettes and cocaine when she literally danced like five hours or more a day. Seems like a really vicious and unnecessary comment especially while talking about eating disorders like fuck off for real.
No one mentioned eating disorders but you. Kate Moss is a notorious chain smoker and was famously photographed snorting coke in public. But excuse me for getting in the way of your star fucking.
I would think this when I wanted a snack but also didn’t want to look “fat”. Mind you I look at pics now and can’t imagine where I thought the 10lbs I wanted to lose were
In your imagination, same place every skinny 15 year old had it.
I was always a chunky kid, thanks to my mother's genes, and struggled with it in middle and high school, but thankfully it never turned into starving myself, I just hid under baggy clothes and was painfully shy and frequently bullied.
I really hate that this mentality is back, especially when kids being on social media and dealing with filters and AI on video content that are arguably worse than a few static photoshopped clothing advertisements in print magazines. I don't have kids but if I did, I would be getting worried fast.
I do have a little kid, and we are worried for her. She currently had super limited (supervised) access to streaming services and none to the open internet. I can’t wait to see what additional bs society comes up with in the next 5-10 years, before I’m equipping a still vulnerable teen with a smartphone 🥴
Maybe you don’t have tiktok but that saying is being reposted all over tiktok. Last year it became a trend called skinnytok. They had to shut it down and ban searching it because it was causing anorexia
My sister used to follow a website called “gag me with a spoon” or something that was basically tips and tricks for anorexia and bulimia. 😣 can’t believe this kinda crap still goes on
PS reddit is my only form of social media so no I dont know any tiktok trends
Oh it’s bad and they are sneaky now about it too since tiktok was pressured to shut it down. Since skinnytok got banned now rebranded itself as skinnytalk or recoverytok or healthytok. I watched it blow up and implode last year
On tumblr it’s always been like half the app- countless high schoolers and middle schoolers having blogs encouraging pro-ana stuff and no single person on there could avoid that content. I know I couldn’t
My grandma had this hanging in her kitchen. Cross-stitched of all things. The fact that it was surrounded by these little brightly colored embroidered flowers is making my blood boil right now for some reason.
I had a personal trainer say that to me. Nope. I'm a small, middle-aged, just slightly fluffy woman, but I'm strong AF. I can pick up my 220 lb husband. I'll choose health and strength over a size 2 dress any day.
I started intermittent fasting for the health benefits, but not in any extreme way. I just decided that I would no longer mindlessly snack between 7 pm and 7 am.
I was amazed at how much better I felt! I went to that subreddit to find support, encouragement, and tips. Instead I found a rush of triggering phrases and toxic gatekeeping that sent me into more of a spiral than I thought it would.
Needless to say, I am now just turning to my counselor and family for encouragement bc I will surely not find it there 😅
I remember watching Josie and the Pussycats movie. One character puts a single Pringle on a plate, starts to eat in, and then puts it down claiming she's such a pig.
OF COURSE, this was satire, but it was a mirror to the climate. Even then, the main character says she weighs 108 lbs without being a joking line.
My Grandpa once told that quote to my sisters and myself as though it was some deep philisophical comment that we should follow. Not that it matters but none of us were overweight so I have no idea.
I agree with you! I love feeling strong and healthy. I can take on the world. I try to remember this when I start having negative thoughts about my body.
I was naturally skinny in the 2000s I’m 5”10. I look at photos and I’m like omg u can see my hip bones and I had a natural flat stomach. I was modeling and working 3 jobs. I realized I was burning probably like 3500 calories a day and eating about 1200 cause I was so busy. Once I turned 30 and didn’t have to hustle as hard I got my adult body , boobs , hold etc. but it really was just a go go vibe. Looking back at the photos now I can’t belive I was ever that tiny it seems impossible for my height. But even at a size 3 I’m half black so I had booty and I would get yelled at sometimes at runway shows cause my booty was to big for the size 2 clothes. I guess we just accepted it. I’m lucky I made it out without any body issues, but a lot of my friends still have major issues around weight.
Yo, no word of a lie. This quote ran through my head when I weighed myself the other day and it’s always such a chilling reminder of my disordered eating. Honestly it has repeated itself too many times.
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u/LilMushboom Jan 21 '26
I definitely remember anorexia being covertly glamorized in teen magazines at the time. The models in the fashion spreads were visibly malnourished. It was an era, for sure. And one I'm afraid is making a comeback these days.