The 90s was the time when the “heroin chic” look became popular. Usually in fashion you saw models that were extremely thin, that looked unhealthy with dark under-eye circles. This “trend” was also adopted by the Hollywood scene and pop culture in general. We were fed by continous images of slim bodies through magazines, billboards or ad campaigns. Even we were getting a lot of dieting tips on how to reshape our bodies, always towards a thinner version of it.
Well, I guess this is not much different from what we are living today. But, of course, the body positive movement has helped a lot in accepting ourselves, or at least in understanding the root of our insecurities.
The problem is that we want to put an “ideal body” as a standard to be met. Of course, our bodies are not a trend neither we should try to look to fit in one, because, well there are many things that influence the way we look. Here I am not talking only about diets or exercising routine; but of course on factors such as genetics, stress, that in most cases are what really define our body type. I go more in depth in this theme in another previous article, so if you want more information you can just go in it: ”Why Do We Want to Lose Weight So Bad?”
We manipulate and destroy our bodies to try to reach that “perfection”. This many times leads to eating disorders, negative body image about ourselves, even bad habits such as smoking or like in the 90s the use of drug substances as a form of appetite suppressants. I am tired of saying this but of course thinness thus not equals health.
Like we mention before, the body positive movement helped a lot in accepting ourselves, and embracing our own bodies rather than trying to look like someone else. Here we should also mention Kim Kardashian, and her influence on a more curly and realistic body trend, she started being famous around 2007.
Sure there are many contradictions with the Kardashian´s influence in the body positive movement. Like for example Kim Kardashian´s 2019 Met Gala look, accentuated an unrealistically small waist and wide thighs; this look was actually achieved by learning breathing techniques and also with the use of corsets. There was also a discussion on the media saying that she had removed actual bones to her body to fit the Mugler dress, but fortunately this was not true.
By the other hand, on the 2022 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian worn a historic dress, worn several decades before by the one and only Marilyn Monroe. For being able to fit the dress, Kim needed to lose 7kg in 3 weeks. Of course, that amount of weight-loss in that short period of time is not probably the most healthier way in losing weight. But the real concern here is that if thin is back again. This bought debate and concerns online, specially because Kim has always seen as a curvy model and not a skinny one.
So why are we really talking about Kim Kardashian here? You like it or not she is one of the most influential women in this decade. First we saw her with a promotion of a curly body type, but still with a very flat stomach. Of course, only some people are born with this type of body and if you want to fit in this category it is very difficult to get; many people even should go through surgeries. By the other hand, we have now the skinny body type, that of course we already know many of the consequences that implies looking for this ideal body. I cannot understand why we don't just accept different bodies; ok, so actually I do know the answer that is the system. They are and always have been profiting through our insecurities; it is just sad that we are still on the same road over and over again.
Getting back to the real question of this article, we can say that, of course, there were some years in the 2000s when women were not pressured to be as skinny as before, but there were still other standards to meet.
It seems for me that we are always trying to be more skinny, some years with the heroin chic look, others a more curly but still with a flat stomach, and now all over again to skinny. We are not trends, each time we try to be skinny, fat, or something in between, we are not being true to our real bodies and necessities. As Jessica Grose from The NY Times said “It’s clear to me — and to anyone who’s been studying teen and tween girls over the past few decades — that the super-thin ideal never really went away…and the insidious nature of that ideal has been pretty constant since the ’90s, or has possibly become worse… A review of studies published from 2000 to 2018 found that the prevalence of eating disorders increased over the study period of time from 3.5 percent for the 2000 06 period to 7.8 percent for the 2013 18 period.”
The truth is we cannot escape our own bodies; we live in them every day. So, why don’t we try to accept and love our bodies? Or, at the very least, we can try to build the best possible relationship with them.
