Thin is in again—an open letter to the youths from the generation that was fed diet culture for breakfast

Social media is notorious for introducing new trends every other week, but the latest flavour of the week is one that has left a bitter taste in many of our mouths before. 

Have you noticed that every celeb that was once selling body positivity or vivacious curves has suddenly dropped the weight in favour of an ultra thin look?

Everywhere you look online, the aesthetic of thin, statuesque models or “pilates princesses” have consumed online discourse—from fashion, to fitness and everything in between.

While curves previously made a comeback and the decade of the BBL had us all in the gym squatting for our lives, now, as celebs trade in the curves to look thin, it’s clear that this toxic trend is once again taking over. 

As someone who had many of her foundational years in the early to mid 2000s, watching MuchMusic and MTV, obsessing over celebrity red carpets and magazine covers in the grocery store because of my obsession with fashion and naturally, watching every episode of America’s Next Top Model as a young and impressionable adolescent—I am no stranger to the cult of skinny. 

It wasn’t just a trend to be thin, it was an expectation and prerequisite for fame and any female celebrity that dared to put on a pound or two was absolutely annihilated in the media. 

I remember seeing pictures of the likes of Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Hillary Duff and Nicole Richie blasted on front covers of magazines, ridiculed for putting on weight despite having completely normal body types. 

Thin wasn’t just “in” — it was everything. 

To be skinny was to be high fashion, chic, and beautiful. Anything else was not good enough. 

As an awkward and naturally skinny kid with a diet of nuggets and french fries, I thought that I was immune to the diet culture I grew up in.

As I got older, however, and included the likes of Instagram into my media consumption as a teenager I realized how impressionable I was to craving skinny, or “fit” as it was being sold, and wanting to learn what it took to maintain it. 

Early in my “fitness” journey, I know for a fact that I wasn't eating enough food to fuel my body, especially because I was trying to achieve a desired body type—one that met the standard I saw being perpetuated everywhere. 

I subconsciously kept track of every “cheat meal” I had, how much sugar I was consuming and keeping score if I treated myself too much.

I policed myself, and told myself that being fit and healthy was the reason. 

In reality, I was just scared of gaining weight, likely because of the messaging I saw around women who did.

Did you see how quickly they flipped on women who put on a few pounds? I thought it was self love to be “strict” with myself, when in reality I was just chasing thinness which I had convinced myself was fitness. 

The generation I grew up in quite literally instilled a fear of gaining weight.

Crash diets and fad workout trends were the norm. We were constantly being told nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

As I got older and entered a healthy relationship and now marriage, I realize how little I was actually consuming and what it really takes to fuel an actually healthy body.

I realized that relationship weight was really just healthy weight that I hadn’t put on before because I never truly fed myself enough food to reach a desired level of fitness—not just thinness. 

I learned that the natural weight your body is at when you are eating enough calories to fuel your body is the weight you are supposed to be—not the one you arrived at solely through deprivation. 

It’s why when I look online and see the fact that “thin is in,” I’m alarmed for the generation that’s going to share our messed up views towards food and dieting.

The aesthetic taking over social media is really just being skinny above all else. The algorithm is serving up disordered eating and everyone is once again eating it up. 

While there are so many positives about posting your health and fitness journey online, I often see posts on TikTok or Instagram serving up quick diet culture hacks or serving up one desired body type. 

I’ve seen posts of people saying that “being skinny is the outfit” —implying that it doesn’t matter what you wear as long as you’re thin. (which really isn’t true, if your outfit is ass, your outfit is ass, I’m sorry).

There’s other videos that explain step by step how they stay skinny and offer up tips to others craving the same thing. 

The terminology here is important because instead of offering up healthy lifestyle hacks or other tips, “being skinny” is positioned as the end goal.

I saw another post that called being skinny a “power move”... whatever that is supposed to mean. 

People are posting “What I eat in a day” videos on their calorie deficit but with a dangerously low number of calories—eerily reminiscent of the diets sold to us in the early 2000s. 

The word “Ozempic” has entered popular discourse and people are normalizing that dramatic drops in weight in their favourite celebs and influencers and now they’re dropping hacks on how to achieve the Ozempy look for less, including by using tapeworms which surely cannot be healthy. 

Ultimately, everyone should take care of themselves and their bodies and pursue health and wellness as an end goal, whatever that may look like to them. 

But if you see a millennial having war flashbacks when they see the words “thin is in” again, now you know why. 

Besides, another new unattainable beauty standard is sure to drop in a few months so we can all cross that bridge when we get there.