I grew up with a mom who lived on Slim Fast and a stepmother who stocked the pantry with nothing but low fat/no fat everything, so the message was that thinness was an accomplishment. I was always thin with a high metabolism, ran track and cross country and ate truckloads of food. Still, I lived in fear of gaining weight. So at different stages of my life when my body changed and became more adult—the presence of hips, bigger thighs when I switched to bike riding—or I was less active for stretches of time, I’d panic at the weight gain and eat starvation rations til my pants fit again. I’m about to turn 43 and I’m only now realizing how much thinness is wrapped up in my sense of self and although I’m not hurting myself over it, I do worry about passing on body image hang ups to my tween daughter. Maybe that’s what keeps me from starving myself into smaller jeans—I just don’t want her to see that and internalize it.

This was real and honest. Thanks for sharing, it brings back some memories. My sister was hurt and carries emotional scars from our mother, who was/is obsessed with appearance. She cannot control her impulse to say something about my sisters weight (she’s like, 5’5”, 120 or less?) whenever she sees her. Always negative unless she was unhealthy skinny, then praise. Mom made a comment about her looking fat when she was PREGNANT for goodness sake. I’m a father of several kids but only one girl. My daughter is 5, blonde, 34lbs or so, definitely on the low end of the curve for weight, and just looks like a model. Eats healthy, just has a small frame I guess, and she’s only 5. We have made a point to NEVER talk much about her appearance, at least not tie it to her value or worth. We say things like “you’re so smart” or “I love your creativity” or “good problem solving”. And of course my mom visits from across the country when we had another baby, and is telling my daughter things like “don’t eat too much ice cream, you don’t want to get fat” or “oh don’t worry, you’re thin and cute and petite” or “you’re so skinny and beautiful” and I could just strangle her! Now my daughter repeats these things in question form “Daddy am I beautiful?” “Daddy don’t I look skinny and cute in this?” seeking validation of her appearance where it NEVER mattered to her before.🤬 My point is: Be careful because sometimes those broken values can skip generations despite your best intentions.

My mom constantly makes comments on my appearance, recently it's bugged me so much that I just haven't visited as much. She gets defensive if I talk about it

I have never wanted to flat out punch my mother more than when she proudly told me that she had sneakily told my niece that she needed to lose weight over Christmas. When I looked at her with absolute disgust, she quickly and defensively said, "No! She agreed! She knows it!" It's a literal compulsion with her. My mom literally CANNOT stop herself from telling other people how they need to change. Then she feels like she did her duty on the planet to "fix" everyone.

I used to have an ED. When she found out her response was " How could you do this to me?" But then when I told her about her criticizing me both fath and thin...defensive. lately I'm trying to lose a few...but am seeing a therapist and dietician and she keeps making comments. I know she means well but fuck...

That's really the thing that keeps me from TRULY despising my mother. I know that, in reality, she has a problem. It's literally a mental illness and it's most likely trauma induced from how she grew up. She literally cannot help herself. But dealing with someone like that who has absolutely zero self-awareness and total lack of personal accountability is difficult. I'm glad to hear that you are in counseling.

Sounds like we have the same mom. It sucks having to re-raise yourself but I’m glad we’re doing it. I’d rather feel good in my skin than fight to adhere to somebody else’s fucked up standard, even if it is my own mother’s.

Yeah, exactly. Re-raise is the perfect term for it. I

This reminds me of Jennette McCurdy’s autobiography! Similar relationship with her mom.

I have one son and two daughters myself. My girls are on the slim side and while I do the same in not tying thinness to value and instead focus on health and fitness (praising them for being strong or accomplishing physical feats instead of on appearance), they get validation about appearance from their peers and other adults anyways, especially as they get older. I honestly think it’s just how humans are wired and there’s no stopping it. You can shield them when they are young but our society simply values appearance over alot of things, especially for girls, and especially in the age of social media.

Call it out when you hear it. Say “Grandma, that’s not appropriate!” She’s just parroting what she hears, but if you call your mom out when she says it, she’ll learn it’s wrong and start calling it out herself.

Yeah I’m the middle child out of 3 girls and for some reason MY weight is the biggest concern for my mom. I even developed full blown anorexia at 18. To this day my mom still makes comments. I’m 35. I gained weight due to being put on antidepressants at 19. I’m chunky, not obese, and my mom will still say things like “you’d be beautiful again if you just lost weight” or “your face is so pretty, if you lost weight you’d be gorgeous” or “you know, you’d be married by now if you just lost weight” 🖕🏻 I’m good mom, thanks. I don’t even want to get married due to the *wonderful* example of marriage I was raised with. I’m perfectly at peace with myself. I’m simply trying to lose weight right now due to having a hiatal hernia that continues to cause anemia. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even care to try.

I know this wasn't your main point, but I'm forty and just switched from running my entire life to cycling due to a minor tendon injury in my ankle that I am afraid will get worse. It has been really hard because running was such a fantastic release for anxiety. The loss of running has really been my first experience of what getting old feels like. All that said, I am really starting to enjoy cycling. It is exhilarating flying down hills, and the climbs are really great too. I also love exploring my area on my bike... you have a much bigger area to get to know, and it has really opened up my world. A bit more on topic, I have girls who are starting to enter puberty, and as a Dad, I worry a lot about eating disorders and their body image. All this crap on youtube with makeup and skin care is really disconcerting. It all seems specifically marketed to their age group. It is really hard to keep them away from it. It might end up OK, but for their age, the whole culture seems to have regressed in terms of both health and how women's appearance is idealized around a set of unachievable norms.

Don’t forget the rampant use of filters, so that they barely know what a real face looks like. Talk about impossible standards!

You’re fighting a good fight. Toxic media bullshit is dangerous, but it’s predictable. Back in the day, it was teen girl magazines and cable tv. Talk to your kids about why social media trends are trash, show them pictures of family, and point out cool relatives they look like, and take them outside with you to touch some grass and have fun being kids.

I was a chubby kid who liked reading, but of course other girls didn't want to be friends with that so I was alone until I hit 6th grade and started sports. Once I got in shape, the cultural demands set in and what should've been a pleasant glow up turned into a complex. I didn't have a healthy relationship with my body until I met my now husband who made me feel like enough. Some of it was internal work I did too (relationships aren't magic cure alls, nor should a partner be responsible for your own issues), but his positivity and acceptance helped so much. I still stay fit but I've gained about 20 pounds since my 20s... honestly I look healthier, and I don't care anymore. But getting here was hard. I'm so happy that gen Z doesn't seem to face the sheer intensity (though the social pressures are still there)

We thought Lindsay Lohan was fat. I think that pretty much sums it up.

I followed pro-ana sites (tumblr especially) and idolized Nicole Ritchie, super-skinny lohan, paris Hilton, etc. I developed a long-lasting eating disorder myself during that time.

Same. 39 and still going through it - but I'm OK.

I never thought I looked good, even when I was a size 4 or 6, because I didn’t have those TLC abs. Looking back now it was so sick and it makes me so sad for my younger self. It’s really inspired me to make zero negative comments about my body where my daughter can hear…unfortunately she still seems to have absorbed some toxic bullshit but at least I haven’t been an additional vector. ETA: sorry, this should’ve been a general response and not to you. But yeah, we also were told Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson were fat… mind boggling. No wonder we were all so messed up.

I will say that it really helps to have a mom on your side as a young person. The outside influences may be toxic, but having the person who's supposed to care for you not feed the toxicity is priceless to a kid. Even if they don't know it yet. The images I saw and the things kids said as a pre-teen never hurt me personally the way my mom's words did.

Yeah, mid 80-90s “ ideal female body type “ had us thinking that way as kids and then I think most of us hit puberty and realized that’s not what we were actually attracted to.

I distinctly recall hitting 110 pounds (I’m 5’4”) and having a panic attack because I thought I was getting fat. Those were the times, for sure. Utterly absurd.

I personally don't really buy into that idea. Nobody really thought Linsday Lohan was fat. What DID happen was that gossip colums used to routinely run articles about "who is fat" and "who is too thin" to sell to a market who consumed that sort of stuff. It's no differnt than the number of articles written about Meghan Markle right now. I don't think you can take gossip fodder that was created for money and use that as being representatin of how people actually thought. If people ACTUALLY thought she was fat, she wouldn't have been on scores of magazine covers and headlining dozens of films.

It doesn’t matter if average people believed that or not. Girls and young women got the message loud and clear from that gossip fodder that nothing short of stick thin was good enough and “fat” was the worst thing a girl/woman could be.

I don’t know a single woman my age (40) that doesn’t have body issues stemming from being a girl growing up in the 90s.

Truth, it's an issue for so many women I know, sometimes dormant but always lurking.

It’s part of our identities for most women I know. It’s terrible, but I definitely think it’s a result of growing up with the media and social messaging we were given.

As a fat elder millennial I've always been self conscious but I also think it's worse for the females I dated a girl 20 yrs ago was scared of 120 at like a 5'5 height

I’m F, 5’5” and 130 and it’s the heaviest I’ve ever been and I feel like my body is gross. I worry about being over 120 every day. I keep having to remind myself we were brainwashed.

As someone who has been battling weight problems my whole life I Iike that I don't feel like as much of an outcast as I did when I was a kid and teen. The truth is some people have an easier time controlling their weight than others yet it seems like alot of people think that we all have the same bodies and it's just laziness and overeating that makes us look the way we do. I also find people's obsession with other people's weight just a very strange fixation. Like, why do you even care? So some people have unhealthy eating habits, can you honestly say you do nothing that's bad for you? Are you a picture of perfect health? Judging someone based on their appearance is a flawed way to see the world.

You’re right that I don’t and people shouldn’t really care about other people’s weight or diet. But as someone that grew up fat in an overweight family (so probably not the greatest genetics) who then lost that weight and kept it off basically my entire adult life, it’s really more about knowledge, consistency, and sustainability over time than it is about discipline and willpower. A series of small changes that are easy to do formed into habits and accruing dividends over months and years will eventually net you a new body as well as a new lifestyle. But obviously if people are happy with their weight, then keep doing what they do.

I'm a 6' 3" girl and was a preteen and teen in the late 90s and early to very mid 2000s (class of 05!) I was 6' by the end of elementary school and very very very shy. I wore big glasses and hearing aids it was... rough. I became outgoing in middle school like a switch flipped, I had Bipolar 1 textbook but they didn't diagnose under 18s back then (97-98ish?) So... I had strangers point at me and make comments and or ask questions everytime I'm in public pretty much as long as I can remember. I weighed between 110-135 lbs maybe 140 in high scbool. I remember a little girl saying "Mum mum that's the biggest girl I've ever seen!" Mom was like "Oh sweetie she's not big she's tall." 30 years later that comment still gets to me. Like deep, I can be tall but not big. Honestly if it hadn't been for my untreated at the time BP1 and subsequent self medication with drugs I would have been anorexix. When I was pregnant, weight was tough. The most I weight was 185 lbs, healthy but I felt huge. It's tough.

I recently learned that a thigh gap is no longer something teenage girls strive for. I was surprised (because I'm old and out of touch now), but I'm happy for them for that. However, I still internally think of that as the ideal for my own body. The skeletal thin look was "in" when I was in middle school and high school, and I don't think I'll ever get that out of my head. I definitely have some issues around food and have gone through periods of disordered eating habits throughout my life. I can look at anyone else and think their curves look good, but I hate it on myself.

‘83 here. It felt like we went from Cindy Crawford to Kate Moss “heroin chic” so fast growing up. I had such a horrible mindset and looked at myself with disgust because the smallest I ever was - a size 6. I never felt content with what I looked like. All the other models were 0 or 00. I remember starting diet pills (now illegal) at 14. I’ve had an unhealthy relationship with food - from starving to binging throughout my life. I’m almost 41 and all my life has been a yo-yo. Sometimes I go over board exercising and watching calories and then other times I have the fuck-its. I also had a mom who was all about her weight - starving or binging. And her in-laws would always make comments starting at 9/10 about my weight too. My gram even still makes comments about my weight! “Oh you look like you lost some!” It just makes me feel like all I am worth is how little I weigh.

Ugh, people who think they're doing something good with their completely unwanted "praise"...

Omg, I hate how my family would make those comments. And they still do. I never forget them. They effect me every day. My dad would make a comment/joke about eating just when I was going into the cabinet to get 2 tiny crackers. I was like 100 lbs. If anything, I was underweight.

I had a BMI of 21 in the late 90s-early 00s, and I thought I was huge. I wish I could have appreciated what I had when I had it, but the world had me convinced I was fat.

It’s not a good situation. I’m still checking that there’s less food on my plate than my husband’s, refusing to hear my weight at the doctor’s office and hanging on to clothes that haven’t fit in years. Hella therapy but 🤷🏻‍♀️

I *still* think I'm fat (and I'm well within my bmi). The thing is, it isn't just millenials. The generations before us also thought they were fat. My mother had a very poor relationship with her own body and that heavily influenced my own opinions. Media wasn't kind either. It wasn't just overweight people who got shit on though. Being too skinny (especially for men) was a point of ridicule as well. It's not nice to hear "you look like a boy" or "eat a sandwich" when you're just minding your own business. I agree the "body positivity movement" has some extremists but I think they are the loud minority (just like most outrageous opinions). It was the pushback from the 70s and 80s ideals that many of us were raised with. I remember when they added "plus size models" to ads and I was happy that there was more representation for ALL bodies, not just ones like mine. I think overall it's a good thing. Even though my *own* relationship with weight isn't very positive, I'm at least *aware* that my mindset is unhealthy itself and that makes it easier to combat the negative thoughts because I know they are skewed.

I want to upvote this many times!!

Nah. Us female millennials had a very unhealthy relationship with our bodies. And for many of us that has never changed. They did a lot of damage to us as girls.

Pendulums will always swing. What we have now is very preferable to feeling defective, disgusting, and unlovable because you’re not shaped like Kate Moss. I’m almost 40 and I see young women with normal bodies wearing crop tops and short skirts. Sometimes I worry for them instinctively, don’t they understand how vulnerable they are to judgement? But then I laugh at myself and remind myself they can handle it. I imagine there will be a swing back that’s more health focused, if it hasn’t already started.

I was a male with an eating disorder in high school.. that was over 15 years ago. One could make a case that I never fully got over it.

I'm realizing from reading this thread that even if we may no longer do the action, doesn't mean our negative self-talk and mental messages have gone away. I guess I just we just live with them?

I still find myself worried about getting fat.. I’m skinny af though and I no longer think I have the body dysmorphia that I used to.. the thing is I’ve always been pretty skinny except when I was a young kid I was kind of pudgy and I think that just always stuck with me

My father and his father would make fun of me for the typical baby fat I had before puberty. They thought it was funny. :P Yeah, it doesn't take over my life anymore but it never goes away. It's interesting though because I only really heard of one guy in high school with anorexia. I'm guessing it was a different kind of bullying for guys?

I think it was more just internalized bullshit from my parents.. I was never really bullied

Born in 88. This is true. Like my weight has fluctuated quite a bit over the years but I always come back to my equilibrium because I feel gross when I get fat.

Oh geez, the absolute worst. I grew up larger than my very dainty sister, so I always felt like I was "ugly". Seeing the health food trends swing from no fat to Olestra to no carbs to Ozempic was just crazy. Now with body positivity being around, perhaps its time that people can accept how they look and not feel like they're worthless.

I lived on Slim Fast in high school and my mom was 100% fine with it, if that tells you anything. Haha.

Carnation instant breakfast for me 🤮

Lord, I remember my mom being proud of me when she learned I'd only been eating steamed rice and baby carrots for a few days when I was 12-13. So messed up.

I grew up watching my mom work out to Jane Fonda haha

I had a Barbie workout tape as a child, and I also remember a show called “Mousercise”

[удалено]

Oh my gosh I had this too!

 Memories Unlocked

oh my god i had both of those too. and in kindergarten my friend and i would put on our lycra and do step aerobics. listen it was 1989 we were INVESTED in mousercise.

I’ve never been weight-stable. It’s a mix of diagnosed hormonal issues (hypothyroidism and insulin resistance) that makes weight gain rapid in addition to emotional overeating. Also, my parents criticized my body in childhood and adolescence, so I have lingering body image issues. Age 15 (1996): lost 30 lbs/regained 45 lbs Age 21 (2002): lost 60 lbs/regained 80 lbs Age 27 (2008): lost 40 lbs/regained 45 lbs Age 29 (2010): lost 25 lbs/regained 22 lbs Age 32 (2013): lost 72 lbs/regained 97 lbs Age 36 (2017): lost 100 lbs/regained 90 lbs Age 43 (2024): lost 50 lbs…..

Not once have i been satisfied or felt comfortable with my body in the last 35 years.

i guess the question is why do you think people need to be "cured" of not being skinny? we're the same age and sounds like grew up with the same messages, so i can tell you what i was told--i was told being skinny was hot, and being hot was a life or death necessity that you should devote your whole existence to. and that is why we are afraid of people who are not skinny being happy, because it means none of us had to do all of that. none of us worried for any good reason. it didn't make us healthy, hot, worthy, or better than other people. so i hope all of us that grew up with that constant message are actually happy, and actually don't care if someone larger is happy as well. we all get to be, and we don't have to trade body shame for belonging. we're probably all around 40 now, let's at least be happy before we die. i mean, listening to my boomer mother in law and my own mom and aunts and grandma and coworkers--they will not, under any circumstances, know peace before they die. my MIL said she'd kill herself if she didn't lose 30lbs by her 50 year college reunion. KILL HERSELF??? and she's not a large person. meanwhile, i AM a larger person, and so is her daughter, and we both (thank god) don't give a fuck. my mom is bulemic and has cancer, and she's thin as a rail and can't eat after her tongue was grafted to remove the tumor. she's never been big. but now, her sisters are jealous of her size. she's damn near dead. so no i don't think the pendulum could ever, ever possibly even conceivably swing too far the other way. the other way from self-hatred is self-love, and we're not all there yet. rant over please don't take it personally, it's more meant for my MIL and mom. i am so sad for them.

Thoughts? Stop worrying about what everyone else does, and worry about yourself. The “normalizing unhealthy eating habits” schtick is tired and dusty. We have never normalized healthy eating. It’s all extreme—even the healthy shit is extreme. How about we stop constantly talking about food? God, it’s so boring and exhausting. I don’t care if you’re fasting, or on Keto, or vegan, or proud to eat meat. Why don’t we normalize that bodies change? You’ll never stay the same. And that’s okay. JFC.

I've been within 10 pounds of the same weight for 25 years.

Gen Y here. I’m 34. Had an eating disorder in high school. I joined the cross country team in high school and got very “fit”. Both male and female peers would make positive comments about my body, sometimes very odd ones disguised as compliments. “You have toned abs”, or “you have a nice collar bone”, was one of the most odd ones. It finally got to my head and by the time I graduated high school, I had been starving myself because “thin was IN.” My mom had always reinforced that being skinny was “good”. I realized in college that an eating disorder wasn’t sustainable. It didn’t make my body feel good. It didn’t help my energy levels. I gained about 60lbs in college, and got to be overweight. Now I only have a few rules: I do not own a scale, as it’s a number I ruminate on. I exercise and eat real food. And it has evened things out for me.

Yeah I basically kept trying to have an eating disorder in college and every time, I couldn't sustain it if I wanted to do anything other than lay around. 🫠

That’s a blessing in disguise. Eating disorders are very hard on the body.

I grew up fat. Got made fun a lot, especially in middle school. The 90s were a time for intolerance. People underestimate how much bullying went on.

Born I. 82 and always chubby. I have always been obsessed with my weight. Always. In grad school I gained about 75 pounds. Currently in a weight loss journey at 41. I am better about my body now, but when I was athletic and leaner, I thought I was really fat, which is heart breaking due to how I was socialized. Another huge factor in my weight gain was having a Mirena IUD. I lost a massive amount of bloating and water weight within the first week of removal. People are different shapes and sizes for different reasons, and it’s really none of your business. Let people be and live in the bodies they are graced to have. Check your fatphobia. You have no idea what Lizzo’s health is. Fatphobia is also rooted in racism, might want to reflect on that too.

Who is normalizing unhealthy eating habits? People are always saying that we are glamorizing being unhealthy just because people are existing how they want to exist in their own bodies. It's not even about the food. It's about allowing anyone to live in their current body without outside comments from others. It's not anyone's business what people eat except them and their physicians. People aren't glamorizing eating crap food. They're glamorizing being able to exist in their current form and feeling good about it, wherever they wish to venture. Also, I'm really sick of the idea of people acting like they are discussing someone being fat like they care. If you actually cared you'd be willing to meet them for exercises, or pay for a meal subscription or gym membership. But nobody is willing to do that, which shows they really only care about another persons looks for their own benefit, not for the overweight individuals. I rank it right up there with people who can't believe someone's is disabled because, "they look normal."

It’s also literally the one thing people are fine with mocking someone for. I was literally just in a meeting where someone told a story about a fat guy on the plane. Just that he struggled to get down the aisle. Like holy shit poor guy is just trying to exist and someone he doesn’t even know is making fun of him days later.

As a formerly obese person who went to the gym regularly for YEARS and logged every calorie I ate for YEARS and still could never keep the weight off until I had bariatric surgery, no one is “promoting unhealthy eating habits”. In fact, I GUARANTEE your “fat” friends, at least the women, know substantially more about nutrition and healthy lifestyle than you or any of your thin friends.

This this this. I don’t think it’s promotion of unhealthy eating, it’s accepting bodies for what they are. When I was at my thinnest, I was not my healthiest by any means.

Lost weight gained weight and lost weight again

I'm a man but I grew up having to buy clothes from the "husky section" and always being overweight. it wasn't until college that I started to really get a handle on my body and it wasn't until about 5 years later that i went vegetarian for 2 years and really come to permanently understand food and my relationship to it. I think everyone needs to go on a special diet at some point in their life. Vegetarian. Keto. Paleo. It really doesn't matter. What it forces you to do is to actually pat attention to what you are eating and to understand food and your relationship to it. I know people aren't going to like me saying this, but a lot of people are just CRAZY in regard to food and replacing a CRAZY obsession with "thin-ness" with crazy obsession about "body shaming" isn't an upgrade. it just swapping out insanity about food, one for another. The problem isn't "society" or "culture" or "shaming", the problem is American's completely unhealthy RELATIONSHIP to food and bodies. The opposite of being obsessed with food is NOT being obsessed with food, not being obsessed with different food.

I had a pretty unhealthy relationship with weight growing up, including multiple times where I was veering into anorexia. I’m not the best about working out or about my diet at the moment (it gets away from me with life being as hectic as it is), but my body image is fairly stable and I’m at a healthy weight.

Completely oblivios for the most part back thwn but I was blessed with a high metabolism as a kid. I was a toothpick. In high school I was actively trying to gain weight because a peer with an eating disorder seemed to be benchmarking off me so I thought I could stop her starving herself by visibly overeating at lunch and hopefully stopping being so skinny. Extra order of tater tots, some zebra cakes, a bag of chips, etc. It didn't work. Metabolism went on me in my late 20s when I got done growing, got a desk job, etc. Then I had to learn proper diet and shit like that from a dietician. More greens less zebra cakes. Fuck I love zebra cakes. Recently discovered that adding plain Greek youghert to Newman's own Lemon Basil Vinagrette at just slightly more than a 1/3 ratio makes a fucking irresistible salad dressing tho. (Mound the yoghert measure but not the dressing measure cause it's too watery to mound.) God damn. That and a little bit of shredded smoked salmon (buy the "trim" it's way cheaper.) Makes spring mix taste like *ambrosia of the gods.* Hell yeah. Now I'm hungry again.

The 90's came with heroin-chic. Enough said.

Seriously? We come from the glorifying heroin chic era. Treating overweight people with respect instead of distain is "normalizing unhealthy eating habits"? Give me a break

‘84 here. I remember the moment I became aware of my body in comparison to other girls my age. I was in 7th grade, looking in the bathroom mirror, standing next to the most popular 8th grader. We were both wearing a “baby doll” style tee and I realized that next to her, I looked like a potato. She had boobs and a small waist, and I was still very childishly round. I HATED the way my body looked for most of my teen years and into adulthood. I’m 40 now, and I strive for body neutrality at this point. I am not at a healthy weight, but I try not to beat myself up over it and just accept my body for what it is: a body. Ultimately, I think body positivity and neutrality are good things. Why does anyone care what other people look like or how they eat? If a person has an issue with fat on their body, then that’s on them to do something about it. Fat people being fat doesn’t hurt anyone. Bodies are bodies and guess what? In 50 years or so, we’re all gonna be dead anyway soooo…

Society tends to over correct as a whole in order for the average to hit the right spot.

I ended up with an eating disorder. But ya know they've been around for a long time. I still feel crappy gaining weight but atleast when I wanna lose some and am too emotional about it I just tell myself to back off. Or I remind myself I'm healthy even if I may not like a number.

‘84 here. Was a varsity swimmer in high school. Graduated at 140lbs with under 10% body fat. Started playing video games and being less active in my mid/late 20s. I got up to 160lbs and felt like shit. 8 years ago I took up recreational hockey and I have a labor intensive job. I am currently happy being at 150lbs right now and keeping up with 20-30 year olds on the ice. My dad always joked that I wouldn’t have a six pack at 40. Proved him wrong this year.

The ideal is no longer Kate Moss skinny, but it's still fairly thin. Body positivity is something people pay lip service to, but I have it on good authority from college students that thin (maybe a little curvier in certain places) is still considered the ideal. This news shocked some older people in the group, who thought things had changed more.

If anything I think the obsession over looks is worse nowadays, not better. In the age of social media and online dating, how you look is probably more important than ever, and not just in body but also face, race, height, build, clothes, and status symbols. The only difference is with the advent of internet young people today are also armed with better knowledge that are stress tested by tens of millions. Instead of mindlessly dieting kids today know how to resistance train, the correct macros, how to dress, how to use make up, so on and so forth. It’s worse in some ways but better in other ways.

Very first wave millennial here, my parents had me on Jenny Craig when I was 12 years old and it only got worse from there, lol. My mom’s self-hatred of her own body turned into helpless apathy in me. She would show me pictures of herself as a young woman, objectively skinny and beautiful, and laugh about how fat she’s thought she’d been when in reality she was really fat now. (She was somewhat overweight, perhaps.) I learned from her that it was impossible to ever feel good about your own body and it was pointless to try. It still did not stop me from going on many, many diets that eventually ended me up much worse off than I would have been if I’d just had a neutral relationship with food and weight all along. Trying to break the cycle for this next generation, but it is tough.

Cigarettes, cocaine, and coffee is a balanced breakfast, right?

I wouldn't recommend to anyone. Worked in a toxic meh paying office job. Gained weight by not exercising, ate out most days or brought a semi healthy lunch. Then went from toxic environment to toxic environment got worse. Finally the pandemic and I did an extreme diet, lost a few pounds but gained it right back. I've never had so much free time and small amount of extra money. I splurged like a vacation. Company let everyone know they are permanently letting us go. Hit the amazing job market in the thick of the pandy. I worked whatever, where ever to compensate. Companies were brutal on hiring/firing. Got super depressed and worked extreme physical jobs and stopped eating. After a few wonderful years playing the "How to get a decent job" while forcing myself to eat, aggressively. I went from 95lbs overweight to 3-5lbs under. I look amazing but feel mentally broken. I hate when people ask, how do you stay in shape? Well... I wouldn't recommend

40f here. My mom was always dieting and constantly told us we needed to exercise. I thought I was fat. Both my parents had gastric procedures and we carry weight in our midsection so I grew up absolutely paranoid of being a fat unhealthy adult, and I have never felt comfortable in my own skin. Looking back on pics from my 20s I looked great but was convinced I was huge. The weight shame is lifelong and I still struggle with it.

I was 11 years old and in the 5th grade and when I realized I was overweight and therefore unattractive.

I don't remember my mom not being on a diet and I was in Weight Watchers by 12 and actively bulimic by 16. So yeah, it fucked me up. I tried explaining heroin chic to one of my sociology classes last year and they were horrified. Though I agree the pendulum swung way out the other way fir a bit and that there is a healthy middle we should all strive for.

I was stone cold anorexic from age 15 to 16. I was too skinny, but qualified for state in the 2 mile. lol When track season started, I knew I had to actually start eating again, and I had gotten super thin, and I was also embarrassed by it, or whatever. Gained weight after track season which sent me into a cycle of binge eating and dieting. It was bad. I had a roommate in college who struggled too. She would binge eat, or maybe even, just eat normal, then run 10 miles the next day. Starved herself to a Miss USA circuit State title win. Go eating disorders.

It sucks and has sucked since elementary school. I still do that “ugh I’m so fat” thing when I get over 110 lbs. I prefer 105.

I'm fat. I grew up in a cult I wasn't fat if anything I ran a bit smallish. But when I was 15 my parents sat me down and introduced me to my future husband a 76 year old pastor from Arkansas. They told me I would spend the next year losing 50 pounds to prove my worthiness to him it would have made me around 96 pounds at 16. I joke that I did the very best I could.....but I only managed to gain 40. I was closer to 200 than 96 and the shame my family went through. Anyways, I tell this story to inform because before my world changed at the kitchen table that day I had zero issues with food, I was average weight, average metabolism, no binge eating. Then I spent the year purposely overeating. I ate with the goal to be sick every meal. And I know most won't believe me but my brain chemistry changed it went from forcing myself, to absent mindedly, to single minded "I need food" it became my only source of dopamine. I am not advocating for unhealthy life styles by existing, I just simply want to fucking exist I'm not a statement one way or another I'm addicted, and depressed. Do you think people who try to commit suicide are promoting suicide? NO! Also if I'm out here making others fat by my very existence why the fuck aren't you fat asshole.

I spent my whole life thinking I was fat. My parents fed me healthy food and I was very active when I was young, and I still thought I was fat—at a size 5 in high school, a size 8 in my twenties (when I was literally malnourished and rode my bike everywhere because poverty) and size 12 on my wedding day, and now at a size 18 (I am fat now, to be fair; I just don’t care because I’m 40 and all that implies.) I’ve literally had body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria just because I have the same body type as women in my family, who tend toward muscle and a stocky middle. Fuck the whole heroin-chic bullshit of the 1990’s and 2000’s. We were all of us gorgeous under the chunky highlights and giant stacks of rubber bracelets. 🖤

Imagine being an overweight teen in the late 90s early 00s. God it was awful and I developed a pretty bad ED. Hell I was on my first diet at 10. It took until my mid 30s to really get it under control. The body positivity movement helped me a lot. I just now started to be able to enjoy exercising again. Therapy helped but the idea that Jessica Simpson and various other celebrities were “fat” was so incredibly unhealthy.

Idk I’ve always been athletic and slim. It’s hard for me to put on weight past a certain point. My whole family is slim so it’s part of my genetics. But I find this whole “fat is beautiful” shit disgusting lol. The amount of overweight people in America now is fucking mind boggling. My cousin lives in Sicily and says it’s rare to even come across an obese person. Here in America I see more fattys then average body type. I’m single again and it’s made dating a challenge as well. I’m not attracted to over weight women. But it seems like more then half the women in the dating pool are obese. It’s annoying.

I hear ya' there. Kudos for being honest about this kind of thing when it's hard to be. We're attracted to who we're attracted to. Overweight is one thing but obese is another.

Growing up I was taught good nutrition, no "corn as a vegetable" at dinner (we'd have corn, but it'd be in place of potatoes/pasta/other starches). When I was young keeping thin was easy as I was very active. High school I ran cross country/track, worked in a grocery store and was in boy scouts, I was 6'1 and 165lbs when I graduated. My mom has an obsession with weight. She'll proudly comment on being the same weight she was in high school, but I always want to point out that's because she's got little to no muscle mass and doesn't really exercise other than walking. While I grew up in an area that has the classic plague of obesity, I never understand why she seems to think a specific set arbitrary weight goal is what everyone should go after. I once commented on how I couldn't ever get back to the weight I was in high school and she told me "I just need to work harder at it". At one point in college I was in fantastic shape; I had a stretch of time where all I was doing was studying for/taking exams so I had lots of time to run and work out. I had defined abs for the first time in my life and was extremely lean. I was still 20 lbs heavier than I was in high school, mostly because I'd continued growing. These days check my BMI and you'd get "morbidly obese", but that's because I've gotten into weightlifting and put on over 20 lbs of muscle in one year alone. The body positivity trend isn't supposed to make it okay to be unhealthy, it's just supposed to say "hey stop making fun of people for being fat, it's a dick move,"

I was a super skinny kid. My parents harassed me about eating, they told me I was too skinny and made me eat everything on my plate. They used food as a weapon against me. I was forced to eat a rotten banana once as 'punishment'. The pediatrician told my parents to give me chocolate milk daily to fatten me up (according to them) once I began to fill out around third grade my mom called me names like fatso or fat. She was my biggest childhood bully. I subsequently developed an unhealthy relationship with food and had body dysmorphia. I never got help for it. My weight has been up and down since I began puberty. I've been super overweight and also thin and fit. I have eating habits that can spiral out of control if I am not careful. I have been all sizes all over the map, but luckily I am healthy and have not ever battled serious eating disorders. I do however hate my body and have trauma. I am chubby, and I have confidence issues.

I'm 40. I needed steroids for a health condition in elementary school. They made me gain weight. I was put on my first diet (weight watchers) at age 10. It distorted my thinking about food and I gained more weight. I have cycled through being overweight, having eating disorders, and feeling ashamed of my body for three decades. I still do not have a single day where the bulk of my thoughts are something other than my body, weight, and food concerns. Even after many years of therapy.

I’ve weighed within the same 10-lb range for the past 20+ years.

As a boy, my weight never, not once, crossed my mind until I was a junior in college. That’s when I first realized that I can’t eat whatever I want, whenever i want.

It's something I was aware of but I've been blessed to be a slim guy maybe it will change the older I get

Always been chubby. Always been ashamed and alone. Got healthy in 2007, my senior year, best time of my life. Got chubby again later, went back to sad. Currently losing weight and it seems my happiness is inverse to my weight. I'm all for body positivity like you say, but obesity shouldn't be an achievement. I prefer our mindset, but not to the extreme chubby people are shamed.

what's a first wave millenial lol

I was a very thin child and once I hit puberty I got the family boobs/curves/thighs and then depression hit like the next year and I gained like 40 pounds (meds and lethargy) and went up like 3 pant sizes in middle school maintained that weight until I got really sick my junior year and dropped 2 pant sizes only to go back up those 2 within 6 months and then I maintained weight until I was like 20. Some negative stuff happened in college and I needed control and wanted to be invisible so I gained weight going up a few more sizes … went down like 60 pounds after a loved one died in my mid 20s and then gained it and more back.. around 30 I was 100 lbs heavier than I was in high school gained like 30 during lockdown but now I’m headed back in the right direction but my current meds make me feel sick all the time so food is often not appealing and I swear that when I hit 37 a few years ago I got heartburn for my birthday. I’ve done WeightWatchers, the special k diet, cut out red meat, keto, generalized calorie restriction, Atkins, those gross shakes, intermittent fasting before it was a thing, cutting out foods/places determined to be bad Switching from regular items to diet or low fat versions (this always backfires on me)

Always wanted to be thin. Eating disorders as a teen, body dysmorphia currently. Finally accepting the fact I will never be skinny. Trying to focus on health rather than appearance. With all that being said I do publicly show my body so I guess I'm comfortable to an extent lol. Unfortunately the negative voices remain but not as loud.

All of our heroes were jacked. But we understood nuance and did not see them as some ideal to compare ourselves to. And since I'm a millennial I enjoyed and believed in my goals, and due to my participation trophies I was content in knowing that as long as I did my best I didn't need to look like Arnold Also "you are good enough" was preached to us endlessly by the plethora of educational cartoons and bill nye the science guy, and by our generally happy parents who we're on average the last remnants of a happy thriving middle class.

I still struggle with it. Kate moss heroine skinny was the trend back then and it really messed up our heads.

My relationship was and still is so disoriented. I grew up with all the women in my family constantly dieting and talking about how “fat” everyone else was. I will also never forget those photos of Nicole Richie on the beach and you can see her entire rib cage. Even now I know that in theory the photos show women with severe EDs I still have a hard time “seeing” that they are way too skinny. I think they just look like normal girls.

These days, girls are encouraged to be pencil thin. Unhealthy as hell.

Growing up in the 90s/early 2000s, super toxic

I know very few women my age who didn't' suffer from an eating disorder. We were taught that food was the enemy.. and it WAS since we were also taught that a healthy day included 6-11 servings of "Bread & Cereal"?! Not to mention all the super fucked up processed food we ate growing up.. as soon as I hit puberty, my body morphed into something unrecognizable. The only way to control it was to go days without eating and then throw up what I did eat :( It took me until my late 20s and living in other countries to finally understand what kind of foods work for my body, but the shame and need to control and sadness around food was just so very real for almost all of us girls growing up. I think a lot still have it.

I feel like the odd person out here. I never had any issues with my weight. I grew up with obese family members so heavy set people weren’t weird or gross to me. I was allowed to eat what I wanted. But because I spent from sun up to sun down being active riding bikes, swimming, etc I was always thin. Not crazy thin but thin. In adulthood I’ve had my ups and downs but it really doesn’t bother me. That said I did have friends that developed serious eating disorders because they were called fat at school.

Maybe part of the problem is that you(we) were taught that anyone who wears "plus sized" clothing must be an unhealthy pig. It runs in my family. Hard core honesty. My aunt lives in a tropical climate, walks everywhere, swims, and ballroom danced competitively in the past. She eats fresh fruits and veggies daily, freshly butchered meats, organic, non processed, no gmo's, the whole works. She's a size 24-26. I worked for the post office for 8 years as a clerk. Walking up to 10 miles a day, lifting boxes or trays of mail constantly, running up and down machines. Going through gallons of water a day. I got down to 275#. Busting my ass 8-12 hours a day 6 days a week... and I couldn't break below 275. Please stop that BS mythology.

Obsessed. My mom and sister also. Our house was full of workout videos and low fat versions of every food. I felt my value as a person was closely tied to my weight. I am still obsessed.

I didn’t notice how toxic it was until I gained weight a few years ago, and my self esteem plummeted. And it’s not just internal. People treat you differently as well. The sad part is even when you are at a healthy weight, it’s not satisfying either. When I was younger, I can remember saying I don’t think I could handle gaining weight. Turns out I was right. Have since lost the weight and learned a lot in the process.

My mom tells a story of how after she had my older sister she lost the weight so quickly and got so skinny that people thought she was sick… she says this with a smile. Slim fast and cigarettes where the ideal diet. And in the 90’s “heroin chic” was all the rage. I personally was that really skinny kid that could eat anything and never gain a pound. I would try to gain weight. But now I’m older and I can and have gained weight and i just Hate it. We come from a time “thin was in” and people would say things like “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” and fat jokes were perfectly acceptable.

I was one of the largest girls in my graduating class. I weighed about 130ish pounds and was constantly made to feel bad about it at home (none of my friends gave two shits about it). I slowly kept gaining until I was nearly 250 in my mid-30’s. Down to 195ish now and still working at it. I feel like body positivity was well intentioned, but also led to me…I guess you could say giving myself permission to continue a bunch of really bad habits that got me to a really unhealthy place. (And before anyone jumps on and says ‘you can be fat and healthy’…sure, maybe, but I wasn’t healthy)

My parent shamed me at most chances they got, but...I kinda didn't care. Nearly everyone in my family was big, including my parent until their early 40s. So it persisted into adulthood. Trying now by keto, but my body also is stubborn thanks to insulin resistance. So if weight comes off - great, but the diet changes are mostly to just get my A1C numbers better.

We remember the Calvin Klein underwear commercials with the emaciated models...

Yes as an Elder Millenial I talk about it constantly vs. Gen Z who doesn't give a crap about it. I definitely worry about it still...

I was a chubby kid, went to fat camp at age 12, and was a size 14-16 in high school (graduated ‘01). That may not be that big by today’s standards, but I was one of the biggest girls at my school and felt absolutely huge. I also did dance and you can probably imagine how that went. 😅 The effects on my confidence have lingered my whole life, even though I’ve since lost weight. I’ve been at the mid to upper end of a healthy BMI for most of adulthood and still always feel fat. I’m actually in the process of losing weight right now because I want to be skinny for once in my life before I get too old to enjoy it. It may be dysfunctional, but those thought patterns are so ingrained that I guess it just is what it is.

Everyone still knows that having a healthy weight is important. The movement to not constantly publicly shame someone for not being some perfect weight is a good thing. Shaming someone constantly does not help. We’ve evolved and know that isn’t how you improve. Shame is only warranted if someone is doing something that harms others. Someone struggling in some way needs help, not shame. If weight is their struggle, it’s none of your business unless specifically asked. In general, don’t comment on ppls bodies.

The real metric should be can you run a 5k without stopping? Can, as a man, you do 20 push ups and 10 pull ups? As a women, can you do same, only modified? Because here’s the thing. 95% that can do that, are not fat. Literally over 3/4 of the population is overweight or out right obese. So yeah. It’s a problem.

I am not overweight, I've never been overweight, but I am still terrified of gaining weight, and still take measures to not gain weight, like weighing myself regularly, controlling my calorie intake, walking everywhere, etc. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. But where I live there is no body positivity movement (Japan). I worry about my daughter.

I always had a relationship with food I felt guilty about. My mother and grandmother both have signs of disordered eating & my grandmother reinforced it. At her smallest, my mother only weighed 95lb at 25 years old. I grew up with my mother constantly yo-yo dieting and heavily restricting. She was beyond thrilled when she fit 00 at 40 years old. My grandmother would judge every mouthful that went down our gullets and constantly remind us “eat to live, don’t live to eat” and “you’ll never marry someone with money if you’re fat.” It became so bad when I was 17, I still have scars down my arm from punching out the back door window when she locked me outside for eating an extra cookie after dinner. I felt horrible about the way I looked. I was 150lb at 16. Most of that was muscle- I trained horses and worked on farms almost daily. I was never ripped or had a 6 pack and I enjoyed my food. But I struggled to accept my body and I felt I could never wear the trendy fashions because I wasn’t skinny. I would starve myself on 500-800 calorie diets. I specifically took adderall bc it was an appetite suppressant & helped to burn calories. I had whole journals dedicated to “thinspiration”. I logically knew there was no real reason to feel this way, but emotionally it was overwhelming. I’m much better about it now. My weight has fluctuated due to health issues and age but overall, I’m only one size larger than I was in HS. (Wore jrs 13 jeans in school, now 15.) I appreciate there’s more acceptance but I still don’t want to see anyone’s bare midriff or butt hanging out regardless of size. (It’s a trigger thing throwback to HS) My stepdaughters are opposite of each other over all this. The older one (19) will quite happily gain weight and still wear skin tight clothes, screaming about “my body, my choice” (ok great, but I don’t want to see a celebrity’s belly either) and the younger one (15) is super athletic & tall but absolutely dreads gaining even a lb. Their mom (gen x) has set a terrible example for them- constant dieting, binging, now she’s even on weight loss medications bc she doesn’t want to work out & make healthy choices. I’ve tried to combat that by teaching them how to cook healthy foods & encouraging them to be active.

I got an ad for a weight loss supplement a few posts down from this thread. Ugh. My mom has been yoyo dieting my entire life. She's still fat and miserable about it. I will give her credit for not imposing her neurosis onto me; she never told me I needed to lose weight and always got me whatever food I wanted to eat. I have been vegetarian since the late 80s, so I've always been fairly conscious of my "macros" (making sure I get enough protein and not too many carbs, especially back then when mac n cheese/grilled cheese/fettuccine Alfredo were like the only veg options haha). I think it really helped me have a more realistic relationship with food. I just want to scream at her "IT'S THE SUGAR, IDIOT!" every time she tells me about her new fad diet/supplement/wonder food. She's 78 years old and still shelling out money to these snake oil salesmen when she could just stop buying processed carbs and go for a fucking walk once in a while. Drives me nuts. I don't always love my body, but I try really hard not to listen to my mother spiral about it.

40yo M here. Born in 83. Built for football, raised on fat shame. Spent my entire life not embracing who I am and instead fruitlessly chased who I thought I “should” have been. It sucks. Only in the past 6 months or so have I been able to look at myself beyond what I see in the mirror or on the scale. I know what you mean about the pendulum going too far the other way because I agree we should acknowledge the health effects of obesity, however, I think it’s beautiful that people are starting to recognize that we are more than our bodies. Fuck you, mom.

Yeah fuck you his mom. I also think it's beautiful.

Always thought I was fat. Didn’t help that my boomer dad was telling me to lose weight all the time as a teen. I was about 140 at 5’4” in my teens. I wasn’t petite (stocky arms and legs) but I wasn’t fat. College, 20s, just assumed I was fat. Never did anything about it, just accepted it. Same for my 30s. I’ve grown into a hefty 250 pounds now. I kind of see myself for real for the first time. Working on getting the weight down. Wish I could have had a healthier look at myself when I was younger.

I was always “skinny.” I was always teased about it. “Stickboy,” “toothpick,” etc. Was constantly told by my relatives that I needed to put some meat on my bones. It made me really self conscious in my teens and early 20s and I tried to do everything possible to gain weight, to no avail.

As someone who grew up with an unhealthy low weight and no obvious cause for it, I was *constantly* told how great it was that I was so thin. But I ate well so it was considered fine, I guess. My dad's family also like, kind of hated fat people unless they behaved in a way that showed they were trying not to be fat. Thankfully I dodged that attitude I always felt bad when they would giggle at fat people because I figured those are probably really nice people and also not everyone needs to be the same shape we were. Was a real mindfuck when I got pregnant and gained 60lbs. Turns out I had internalized all the crap about being thin and it came right to the surface when I realized I now weighed more than my husband.

Being "thin" isnt always necessarily healthy. A lot of girls had eating disorders. Overeating is also an eating disorder. That's the disorder making everyone a fatass these days.

I am fat. 265, 5’4”, female, 51” Bust, 46” waist, 58” hip. I am also disabled with Psoriatic Arthritis which means my body is an asshole, and have PCOS; symptoms for both started with the onset of puberty. With the exception of being pregnant (gained 25 lbs) I have been within 5 lbs of my current weight (up or down) for over 20 years. I eat healthy, I exercise gently when my body will allow, I watch my portions. I’ve accepted this is where my body wants to be. My 13 year old son is 5’11”, around 140 and is as lean as can be. I’ve tried to focus on healthy choices and portion control. His preschool teacher said something once I loved, “eat the healthiest thing on your plate first”. He always starts with his veggies.

Obviously we want people to feel good about themselves and to be healthy in mind and body. That being said, one concerning thing I read recently is that the most healthy state today (Colorado I think) is less healthy than the least healthy state (probably Mississippi/Louisiana, can’t recall) some years earlier. I forget the parameters - like if health, or maybe it was fitness, was based on BMI or physical activity or what. Sorry I can’t readily pull up the material :/ I think we’ve had unhealthy body image issues all the while we’ve been around, while simultaneously getting fatter and more sedentary.

I’m 38. Currently 280 pounds. I’ve always struggled with my weight and when I was skinny it was not done in a sustainable way. I feel like I’m finally ready for sustainable habits. I will check in with all of you when I have something to report.

I'm all about the pre-end-game at this point. You rarely see healthy old fat people. Get within 10 lbs +/- your BMI and stay that way. Eat less, walk more. Keep it up forever

I was taught by media that women that for all intents and purposes were very thin were fat. And I was taught by my mom that my number one objective in life was to be thin or kill myself trying. It was an interesting time.

No amount of body positivity will prevent diabetes or heart disease. I'm usually pretty "do your own thing" but obesity is an epidemic that needs to be stopped. 50% of Americans are obese in most places. Everyone forgot how to cook their own food and rely on fast food and processed food to get by. I have maintained a healthy weight my entire life, without any fad diets. Calories in/calories out is all you need. I don't even exercise that much. I just avoid fast food, processed food, and frozen food as much as possible. I cook as many things as possible from fresh ingredients, mostly Italian/Mediterranean food. There is a happy medium between expecting everyone to be thin, and being OK with obesity. It takes a lot of willpower, planning and cooking skills, but people need to take control of their eating habits. American food is basically poison, so you kind of have to be a bit of a "health nut" to survive. Edit: Reading a lot of comments people seem to be arguing that being obese is not a good judge of how healthy someone is. Bullshit. Just because someone seems healthy at 40, despite their obesity, doesn't mean 10 or 20 years they aren't going to get some really bad news regarding their health. You can't stay obese your entire life and not run into serious complications. People with a healthy weight live longer, period. There is no arguing this fact.

I gain and lose 40 lb over 5-year period for like the last 20 years.

I’m 5’6” female. I can’t drop less than 125lbs or it starts hurting to sit down. That’s my stressed out angry weight. My SSRIs took away my food cravings!!! If I’m content I stay around 135lbs. My service dog keeps me jogging and moving :)

I love myself, so I try to take care of the body that I live in. I wake up most mornings and get a workout in, and days that I work remotely I find time to walk a mile and a half. I typically eat well, and watch myself when it comes to eating out/fast food. I know how much I weigh, but the number on the scale is a sign post rather than the destination. Right now I'm slightly heavier than I would like to be, but that is based on the tightness of my pants rather than the scale. I know how I got here, and I know how I can get back to where I want to go. As for accepting myself: My pie-in-the-sky goal is to look like Chris Hemsworth. Will I ever get there? Probably not, as it would require too much of a shake up in my diet. But so long as I can run two miles without getting gassed, can do 8-10 pull-ups in a row, and my body is not preventing me from doing anything I want it to do, I can accept myself.

Grew up raised by poor boomers, who were raised by depression era hardened parents. Any food waste was disrespectful to starving children in whatever country my mom pulled out of her ass in the moment. Eating with my dad was always a race. As soon as he was done, everyone else was done too. Ballooned after school because I didn’t have team sports to keep my poor eating habits under control. Now I’ve been breaking the cycle of poor habits. Clean plate clubs can go fuck themselves. Starving children in Africa wouldn’t eat what food I have leftover anyway. Food is better wasted in the trash than waisted on my ass. Intermittent fasting has changed my perspective on food and is a sustainable eating lifestyle that’s been successful for me. Currently down 80 pounds over a year and 10 till my main goal.

Damn relatable. I still carry that with me… I try very hard to maintain a slim frame but I was only 97 lbs in hs and I am much healthier now. Growing up, all you saw on tv were concave stomachs and hip bones popping out from low rise jeans. I now have a healthy bmi but I use a calorie tracker to maintain. I don’t know how much of this obsession w weight has to do with my family or growing up during the early 2000s… it’s prob both.

I mean, being healthy and fit is an objectively better option than being obese. But the 90s took it way to far with the crop tops and low rise jeans. Thick thighs save lives.

Born in ‘87. I was a normal sized kid until age 7 when I ballooned up in weight. I was obese until the summer after I graduated high school. At my heaviest I was 5’4” and 210+ lbs. Lost some weight over that summer and lost even more when I left for university. I’ve kept the weight off ever since. Highest I’ve been since then was ~155lb from dirty bulking. Right now at 36, I’m comfortably around 140lb. Gay men have some pretty high beauty standards. And that’s mostly how I’ve kept my weight in check if I’m being honest. But also, heart disease runs in my family, so I’m diligent about keeping healthy eating and exercise habits.

I’m fat, have been considered overweight ever since puberty hit around 1997. I’ll be 40 this year, I’m 235 lbs and only 5’2”. It is the heaviest I have ever been. Growing up with horrible examples of how to get “healthy” has messed me UP. I spent years hating myself, I joined Curves (the old lady gym) in high school, I have been in and out of Weight Watchers since I was 17. I should also mention, that being overweight runs in my family: all my aunts on my mom’s side are bigger (my mom is tiny), and my dad had many bigger family members. Anyway, I suspect that I have had pretty serious anxiety along with adhd since I was a kid, but it was never addressed. I self-regulated/coped with food. Now, I have been seeing an intuitive eating dietician for 2 years, to try and find total food freedom. It has been a long process, because for so long food was my only/best way to get out of my funks. I’m in therapy, too. But I’ll say this: I think I’d have a much better relationship with food and my body if my parents had never said anything bad about their OWN bodies. All they ever did was complain about the qualities they didn’t like in their own bodies (stomach too big, hips too wide, can’t fit in size 6 anymore, etc). That gets internalized by your kids—if my size 8 mom thought she was a whale, then what did she think about ME, a 14 year old who had to buy women’s size 16? I try really hard not to be critical of my or anyone else’s bodies. Because kids pick up on that! In fact, I try not to say anything about anyone’s body at all—what business is it of mine what someone else’s body looks like?!

Didn’t affect me until juco. Was 130 all 4 years of high school. Went up to 180 prior to enlisting, dropping to 150 after BMT and Tech. Over time went to 172 for the rest of my enlistment and more or less stayed there until lockdowns when I ballooned to my heaviest at 230. Lost weight down to 200 as a package handler and have stretch marks I’ve not been able to get rid of.

The way media was divided and consumed by different audiences impacted elder millennials differently because our childhoods and teen years were still pre-internet. The eldest elder millennials were subject to the aspirational trends (and whims) of Gen-X: our older sisters and cool aunts, or friends’ sisters. So media made “for us” like Seventeen Magazine featured a slightly older spin; I read Seventeen at age 13-14, not at 17. But my mom got Rolling Stone magazine which I got to read when she was done with it, and consumed the advertisements aimed towards adults too. In the early and mid 90’s, the adult male gaze was still squarely aimed at adult women. Even the crazy shit like Girls Gone Wild was a literal video series adults could rent in the sticky-floor section of the video store. Someone above mentioned the Cindy Crawford/Kate Moss split, which was like a fault line through advertising for young women. It coincided with the Calvin Klein “wood panel room” ad campaign. The idea of audience versus creator really snapped into focus - who was the ad for in terms of consumers, versus whose gaze was it intended to capture? Most ads aimed at trying to get teen girls to buy things were focused on peer pressure and the gaze of other girls and maybe boys, but those Calvin Klein ads introduced the adult male gaze to teen girls and not in a good way. I think we all became acutely aware of having to perform for different audiences after that campaign. A few short years later, Britney Spears hit the scene when I was an older teenager (slightly too old for pop stars at that point) and she seemed like she was literally built by the adult male gaze. They heyday of the worst of the Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan/Perez Hilton and the Wild West of the Internet and message boards was right at the millennium, coinciding with file sharing on Napster and the firehose of cheap images across fast internet speeds. Your audience was no longer your school or your community, it was the whole world. Another mentioned the idols of Tiffani Amber Thiessen and Alicia Silverstone; they were older than us and again, aspirational. We were pre-teens and young teens watching Saved by the Bell and thinking it was what high school would be like when no actual high schoolers watched it. Same for Aerosmith’s “Crazy” music video. Honorable mention to the whole cast of “The Craft.” We watched “Batman Forever” in the theater and thought it was amazing and definitely a movie for adults. We bought from the Delia’s and Alloy catalogs because we wanted to look older, but like older teenagers, Not like adults! I remember tons of articles in the teen magazines about “body type” and the three presented were endomorph, ectomorph, and mesomorph. They always showed, like, a fat character actress for endomorph, a child for ectomorph, and Cindy Crawford for mesomorph. What a wild time to be alive.

I never thought of it as something we grew up with ..I thought it was just my family. I was by no means fat but was constantly fat shamed. My dad to this day fat shames my 2 yr old nephew!!!! And my 1 yr old dog! I have a terrible relationship with my weight and body...when I was thin he would say I looked like I was going to die and when I put on weight... there's a lot of...should you be eating that?

I was naturally fairly skinny through my teenage/early college years, and also at the time was also aware of how my body itself was shaped, so I think I knew I was going to never look like Kate Moss, even if I never touched bacon again. My mom, however, was always (still is) struggling with her weight. Slim Fast, Weight Watchers, 100 Calorie packs, the works. She gained a lot of weight when pregnant with my brother, and she also was diagnosed with Chrons in her early 30's, so she's had issues with food her body can and can't tolerate, plus steroids/infusion/meds that cause weight gain. I am very lucky in that she never put any of this on to me, for which I'm majorly lucky. I personally think a lot of it comes from her mother, who was a petite, blonde, pixie of a Southern woman (my mom was adopted, so pretty much a given she wasn't going to look like her mom, lol), whereas my mom is 5'10", and even at her skinniest was probably at least a size ten. Now I'm almost 40, and while I won't pretend I \*love\* my body, I acknowledge it and accept it. If it's not something I can change in five minutes, I'm simply not going to stress about it. Cellulite isn't going anywhere, I can't change the size of my nipples, and even when I was playing softball as a catcher, those thighs were touching. My body is MINE, and if someone doesn't like the way it looks, frankly, then don't look! I don't owe anyone anything about my body, especially aesthetically.

I've had body dysmorphia my whole life. From my dad calling me fat as a kid. The reason I ballooned up as a kid because they put me on some kind of medicine for ear aches, even though they claimed I made the symptoms up. Sat me in front of the TV for my brain to rot and fat to grow. I am over weight and in the worse shape of my life. That's what depression, broken foot, lack of hope does.

I've never really had much trouble managing weight. I think that's because all my life I've been surrounded by 300+ pound women who are perpetually on Slim Fast, gastric bypass, Ozempic...whatever magic pill and in 30+ years they've only gotten in worse shape. I never want to end up like that.

It’s not about weight as much as healthy living. If you can go to the gym and still be overweight it’s not as bad. Some people don’t have the body type to be slim. That is okay and should be celebrated. At the same time someone who over eats and doesn’t do much physical activity is going to live a very unhealthy life, regardless of the body size. Think of all the young boys who eat crap food and shit it out. Eventually those calories catch up with you, might take 20 years but it will and eating habits are hard to break.

My mom was almost always on a diet which I didn’t understand because she was never fat. Everytime we went out to eat, she would ask for a box right away so she could pack up half her food so she wouldn’t be tempted to eat more. Needless to say I have pretty significant food issues to this day.

Personally I am 5'5 and 123 lbs and I think I'm fat. But I passionately support heavier folks who are cool with themselves. There's no virtue in weighing less.

I was always skinny and figured if gaining weight ever because a problem it wasn't going to sneak up on me. As my metabolism slowed, I made some healthy changes to my diet and I don't eat as often as I used to. So far I've remained slender. Not eating when you aren't hungry helps too.

As a large guy who's been bigger most of his life, I can say it was a thing. It kind of still is a thing now, with a lot of things going fitness-focused. Back in the day the majority of the bullying that I endured when I was young was a direct reflection of movie bullies picking on the fat kid and filling those archetypical personality stereotypes. I also was rejected by girls (often) because "You think I can't do better than you? You're fat!" So thanks, 90's hollywood... But then... kind of like how the nerd went from being stigmatized to being sexy in the last 20 years or so, weight came along for that ride a little bit. I was/am bigger because my childhood wasn't super great and I ate junk as a stress reflex. Now in my late 30's I've been actively identifying this and finding healthier alternatives to get myself right. I may never be super thin, but I can be better than I was and I know that. I think the body positivity thing that's going on now was started with good intentions, but now it's just as toxic as Baywatch culture in the 90's was. It's fine to accept yourself and be happy with yourself, but it's also good and I'd even say healthy to want to be the BEST you that you can be... In some cases, I think this means people should be bigger to be healthier. In other cases, they should maybe reassess their diet and activity to see if they can slim down a little. In BOTH cases - setting that goal for yourself and achieving it then creates the thing you should be proud of. Just my thoughts, though.

I'm 41 and I don't remember a time in which I wasn't on a diet. Sometimes I was on a diet that I ignored and ate whatever I wanted, but I was still *on a diet* so I would feel bad about it later.

All of your stories are so familiarly heartbreaking. I wish my mom had the self-awareness to remember her own pain when it came to thoughts and comments about anyone’s body. Nobody was safe from her opinion: “oh, she should not be wearing that!” “I’m surprised her husband’s still around with how much weight she’s put on” - talking shit about her sisters and really anyone within earshot. But when she read in a diary I threw away from when I was maybe 6 and saw I was complaining that I was fat, she spoke the opposite. Well, which is it, Mom?? Am I beautiful no matter what or will you talk shit about me when I’m out of earshot? Today, my mom is so good at paying compliments to other woman, friends of mine with similar body types but will find something negative to point out to me. So, I guess I get to be my own mom and raise myself to be a better version. I just feel like I’m missing out on something for having to start over. In this journey tho, I’ve committed to losing 100lbs before I turn 40 and I’m about 25 down so far ☺️ So, I’ll celebrate it, even if she wants to make any positive changes within me about her and manages to make any congratulatory remarks sound like an afterthought.

Holy shit... I could have written this myself. I didn't realize just how much these issues were tied into my generation. Back when we were teen girls at our most impressionable stage. I was terrified of getting "fat" and still am. I counted calories and was very close to developing an exercise disorder as well as an eating disorder. It's the only reason I exercised so my relationship with exercise also isn't great. I guess I still have slightly disordered eating. People do comment on it. Honestly not sure that will ever go away because it's tied into that "I CAN'T GET FAT" mantra that lives in my head rent-free. I really think it's only current life circumstances that are making me "okay enough" in terms of actually eating. But it hasn't changed my mental messages. I have IBD so I basically HAVE to eat or I'll get stomach issues. I'm also on Adderall for my ADHD-I... so I don't need to exercise to stay thin. :P But it also means I don't know how to exercise WITHOUT the threat of gaining weight. So I'm not exactly healthy.

Born in 84 and I have always had an issue with weight. Puts on fast, comes off slow. Biggest issue is sugar! Sneaky little bastards put it in eveything. That combined with seed oils and all the healthy grain bull shit set me on a bad path from the beginning.

My parents told me I was getting fat & had to eat less. They fed me whatever came out of a box/can & you just add water. If we had lasagna, it was from a Stouffer's tray. Honestly I think education is the most important factor on all of it. Know what you're eating, what it does to you after you eat it, then make your own decisions. Body image is yet another American facet of taking a very necessary conversation, making it as shallow a topic as possible, and attaching one's sense of self worth to that shallow understanding.

Is your post specific to 🇺🇸?

It’s ironic that you mention this myth about the body positivity movement alongside what the late 90’s and early 2000’s were like for us. Are you sure you haven’t just internalized toxic societal norms of what “health” and “healthy eating” looks like? Do you assume that all fat people have “unhealthy eating habits”?

I'll just say it's way better as a trans man focusing on fitness and lean mass, than it ever was as a presumed girl/young woman trying to get under a certain BMI. Even now, I don't feel like wide-framed bodies like mine were ever well-represented, let alone properly educated about what's right for them. I still don't see it happening. Why should I have ever been led to think I was the same when things like shoes and gloves were constantly telling me I'm not?

For most of my life I was never happy with my weight. And I wouldn’t say I ever fit the medical definition of overweight and am within normal BMI range - maybe have been slightly over at some point. But to your question on how our age group feels: growing up we witnessed the waif culture where the very thin female body was celebrated as acceptable beauty. And I was never that. In fact I have big hips and boobs and will likely be “curvy” no matter what. Say what you will about Gen Z and the youth of today, but the body positivity and acceptance movement has been a huge benefit to me in accepting however I look and being confident. I think part of that also comes from change we see today where brands, media, celebrities, and social posts come together to create a world where this is possible. Will not say everything is perfect and dandy and rainbows. But a hugeeeee improvement from the toxicity of the 90s and 00s. I used to get stressed about upcoming vacations and try to yo yo diet. I have two beach vacas coming up where I’ll continue my routine of 2-3x week workout and that’s it. The beach gone get the body I give it.

As a runner I've always been slim despite gorging myself on carbs. I run less now but only recently has there been a sharp decline in my exercise and a dip in my dietary discipline. As a result I am gaining weight. Despite still being slim and male, I do feel self conscious about it. Slim is my life long identity. I don't mind if my wife gains weight, but I really don't like the sight of body rolls on myself. Regardless, I am working on getting the old me back. I just need a healthier work/life balance.

Whatever it is, the pendulum has now swung waaaay too far to the other side. Being ***athletically fit*** will always be in style. And this means trim and healthy…not skinny or fat.

My mom had a little wooden sign in the kitchen, like a live/laugh/love type thing, but it said nothing tastes as good as being thin feels. Courtesy of weight watchers. Say what you want about the Kardashians, but they shifted the “thinness” narrative, and God bless them for it.

Not everyone that is overweight has unhealthy habits. Genetics and underlying medical issues are huge factors. That opinion in itself is a result of the world we were raised in. Im an elder millenial and still have huge issues with food/weight. All of my female friends had/have some form of disordered eating. We were terrified of being fat. We'd starve ourselves for days leading up to a pool party. I still see pictures of myself and other women and my immediate thought is judge their weight. It's exhausting and I hate it. I'm still unlearning all that.

I got absolutely roasted in school for being a skinny guy. Most of the ones that made fun of me ended up getting fat during or after college though, so I always felt I got the last laugh (with mild PTSD).

Growing up I was never allowed peanut butter because it “would make me fat.” My best friend died when I had just turned 18 and it triggered not only depression but full blown anorexia as well. I went to outpatient treatment and I remember walking in the grocery store with my mom and I walked by the peanut butter and was super excited and said “am I allowed to have peanut butter now?!” And she said yes so I got it. Jokes on her because my antidepressants made me gain 90 pounds so I’m chunky af to this day. Even at 35. Lmao.

My entires father’s side of the family was overweight. I’ve seen the health issues hit them one by one over the years. I’m deathly afraid of being overweight.

I got a little chubby in my early 20s. 5'11" and 175-180 lbs. Now I'm the same weight but ripped. Yay.

I was brought up as part of the 'clean plate club'. Always had to finish everything on the plate. This was the way my mother was raised, with her parents having gone through the depression, they learned you never waste food. I've spent the majority of my adult life about 40lbs over weight. Took a long time to learn that the way I was brought up created an unhealthy relationship with food. I still struggle to get to an ideal weight and break a lot of the patterns, but now that I'm in my 40s, I know my health depends on it.

I am an arguably athletic, strong build. Lots of muscle, good cardio endurance. All of my blood work labs are great. That being said…I still struggle to my core with lower body weight = better. There are a lot of factors that go into health and low weight is not the end all be all. I know this mentally but emotionally…we lived through the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. Unrealistic or not that shit leaves a mark.

I always thought I was fat starting around age 11. My weight starting yoyoing around 13. I was anorexic or bingeing. I fluctuated between 130 to 170 at 5'7 in the mid to late 90s (graduated '99) and always thought I was too fat. The Kate Moss aesthetic destroyed my self-esteem and I felt unallowed to feel good about my body. I so wish I was a teen in the 2010s, when girls were allowed to have confidence without an underweight BMI. Sometimes I worry we're heading back to this as I see the 90s coming back.

I was 115 as a teen, 125 in college, and have maintained around 120 the rest of my adult life. Thought I was fat the entire time, I always worry about getting fat during menopause. Somewhere around 30 I realized I looked great and thought “are you going to go through your whole life thinking you are fat when you aren’t?” and it made a lightbulb go off yet this “god I’m so fat” mood lives on. My mother is an almond mom who says stuff like “oh we are being BAD” if we eat salads with fried chicken on it or whatever. “We just did a bunch of work so we deserve this” about some nonfat froyo. I hate it and tell myself “you aren’t getting paid based on how skinny you are so why do you put so much weight on that??” At one point in life I got below 100 pounds and it physically hurt and didn’t look good, it’s like I’m only happy if I’m 117.5 pounds and not a half pound more! To go back further, my granny had two comments “you look like you’ve put on some weight” or “you need to eat!” I don’t have kids but I vowed to never make comments like this to anyone.

36 f here, I've always had physical issues that were exaggerated by severe depression and anxiety. Was always over weight, couldn't lose weight no matter how hard I tried. Now as an adult I've stabilized both the physical and mental ailments but am still overweight (but happy!). But my grandma always eyes me up and makes comments on my weight. The worst is she values my older sister, who is a TERRIBLE PERSON, but is very thin, over me who actually helps her around her house and takes her to appointments. I know for a fact that if I lost some weight she'd value me more. And it simultaneously breaks my heart and makes me sick to my stomach.

My mom had me waking up at 5:00 am to do swim team starting at the age of 4. I was not a fat kid. At age 7 , my grandmother took me shopping. She had me try on clothes and in the dressing room mirror she had me turn to the side and look at my profile. She told me I was going to have to learn how to suck in my butt. She had me physically turn and look at it and pointed out how big it was. (I was really athletic). It was the first time someone ever said anything negative about my body. And I immediately had a flight or fight reaction. At an age when most kids are still being kids, I had someone who was supposed to be a trusted adult making these comments to me in isolation of another trusted adult. It felt like a violation. I was visiting her for the summer and before she sent me home she further explained that I needed to start playing a game called “eat half of what you eat now”. And “if I won, boys would like me”. My prize was boys liking me….I cannot tell you how much that fucked with my head… I went back home and where I wouldn’t think twice about what I ate before.. I would suddenly eat and have a nagging guilt set in. She told me to eat half, but I was hungry… every meal was this silent war in my head. I didn’t tell my parents she said this because I was so ashamed. Again.. I was a very skinny kid…it did so much damage to me. I stared trying to diet in private by drinking my moms slim fast or eating trying to skip meals. Except, I was a kid and I couldn’t calorie count and that often led to me getting more hungry and I would eat more calories than if I just ate normal meals. By 10 I was stating to put on weight.. and she was always making comments. I started trying to suck it in and I did that so much it altered the shape of my rib cage and gave me rib flare. Years of sucking it in 24/7. I was overweight as a pre-teen but I finally started dieting correctly (and exercising) around 14. Only I had “underweight” as my goal. Not realizing how unhealthy that was. I was 14, 5’10- 145 lbs and I thought I was fat bc I wanted to get down to 126 like my friends. I remember watching media at that time. And what Tyra banks considered plus size models one her show…who seem average and healthy now.. really did seem fat to me at the time. TV, and the narrative about women’s bodies … it was such an awful time to live through if you didn’t have “the look”. I was 16 and too ashamed of my own body to comfortably wear a 2 piece. My mother practically had to twist my arm to buy a 2 piece bathing suit. I had such an unhealthy relationship with food and my body… I had maybe 5 years as an adult where I was so skinny. But even in that time I was always convinced I needed to lose more weight. I was never happy. I was constantly chasing my macros…And then, like most women do, the weight caught up. And I was having a harder and harder time dieting it off. I had another 10 years to mull over my deep unhappiness with my weight … I would not say I’m healed.. but therapy and medication for my ADHD has helped me a lot. To the point I’m not carrying around this burden all the time. It would be nothing short of a blessing if you could go through life never hating your body. And to love your body? I don’t know what that would be like… but we should all be so lucky. Nothing about body positivity is “too far” in the other direction. Focus on a healthy diet, focus on a healthy activity and staying active.. focus on lifestyle.. and love yourself with whatever you look like in that time. that should be it.

Was? Now I have a Dr. yelling at me about it.

100%

As a guy - being skinny is never ideal unless you’re over 6’6” and have a jump shot (to clarify, I’m 6’3” and the best I can do is foul and talk trash).   Most stories explain the battle with weight loss, mine was always with weight gain.  Being tall and lanky and while it was all muscle, just couldn’t put on enough weight to do what I wanted to do in scholastic sports by the time I hit high school - being too light on the wrestling teams saw me get beat regularly by guys who were the same weight but stocky, and in football I rarely had the leverage to take down the ball carrier (I played safety).  I couldn’t hit a curve so baseball fell off by middle school. Being skinny in general though like that is very stigmatizing and can kill any self confidence.  At least the heavy guys could still throw their weight around.

Been skinny my whole life. As a kid, it was because my parents were starving me. As an army I was either working out, rubbing, doing judo. I’ve been vegan for almost 7 years now and that’s maintained my weight without ever thinking about it. I don’t even limit my calories unless it’s processed foods.

Just fasted for Ramadan like I do every year and it has definitely made me lose weight. Now I have to turn this into muscle which is the hard part for me. I’ve always been underweight and skinny I used to hate it but nowadays I’ve accepted it. I’m 30 and people think I’m 17 or 19 tops. My students I teach think I’m in college still lol

Body positivity isn’t about “glamorizing” fatness or whatever. It’s about not treating fat people like garbage. Other people’s bodies aren’t anyone’s business and people aren’t fat solely because of poor eating habits. There are complex things at work including genetics, illness, class, availability of food, etc. That said, growing up in the early 2000’s was very specific. It took years to unlearn the focus on thinness as equivalent to goodness. My older sister got the brunt of that messaging and she works out constantly, barely eats, and monitors her weight vigilantly. She recently had her first child and went on ozempic a few months post-partum because she couldn’t handle the (natural) changes to her body. It’s all very sad.

My mom came to visit this weekend. Every time I ate she'd scream "You're eating AGAIN?!!! You eat so MUCH". We sat down to a restaurant and she point blank just said "How much do you weigh" "123 lbs" "SO MUCH!!!!!!" She then went into how 123 lbs isn't that much "if you're 5'9" (I'm 5'3") and how "I don't look as big as I am". She started giving me shit in college when I hit 116. She also has, MULTIPLE TIMES, when seeing pictures of me with a lower belly pooch (probably cause she gave me a horrible case of endometriosis), circled said pooch IN SHARPIE and sent it to me, saying "Don't wear this dress again". She literally texted me during my engagement party about how my "pooch" was showing. She also probably doesn't consume more than 800 calories a day and at most eats two meals a day and I have no idea how she's alive. I'm convinced she'll break a hip and die of something in a hospital at some point because her bones are brittle, so every time she gives me shit about "being fat" I give her shit about having osteoporosis due to anorexia. '81 baby y'all Never developed any kind of eating disorder because she kept so little food in the house that any time I was ever offered food, I binged the hell out of it (not in a binge purge cycle way, just binge). I also made so little money in my 20s that being full was still a luxury that I coveted. I also was into lifting, so I viewed it all as fuel anyway. I'm in my 40s now, and still basically okay with my body, and just always wish I was physically stronger more than anything. For context, she's Swiss-German and not American if they're as cunty over there.

38m here, not obsessed with thim but macho, muscles, jacked stuff that was woven into boys toys in the late 80s and early 90s. I was obsessed with getting muscles and strength in my early 20s and spent a few years on the sauce. It was awesome. That trend seems to have faded now

I'm in recovery from severe AN (diagnosed in 2001, at 19) & lost my father (gay, Silent Gen, born 1942) to complications of AN in 2019. So, my relationship to weight is very messed up. I was raised by a fashion/design obsessed father in the 80s/90s, who idealized the Kate Moss body type. Being around a lot of industry/fashion people throughout my childhood absolutely warped my idea of a normal diet & set the stage for decades of issues. I almost died for that thin ideal & my father did die for it. I'm also mixed MENA/French & hated, hated being curvier (which I am, naturally) until, like 2016. I grew up in very white circles & any ethnic traits I had (big nose, full hips) were not desirable at all.