I read Rose Stokes’ article with great sadness (I thought we’d entered the age of body positivity. Then came ‘shrinking girl summer’ – is everyone getting smaller except me?, 10 August). Once again, a healthy, intelligent woman is made to feel not good enough by society because she is larger than a size 10.
Then came anger, not with Stokes but with the media and brands that propagate a culture of skinny worship. I was born with a rare physical disability and have spent years coming to terms with the way my body is. I look disabled, I have scars from operations and a spinal curve surgeons couldn’t straighten, and I use mobility aids. To me, Stokes presents as an attractive, successful, healthy woman who is non-disabled (although this is her private business) with the good fortune to have two children. I wish Stokes and others could see themselves in that vein. Granted, it took me years to be happy in my own skin and see the strengths of my body, everything I’ve been through and the pleasure it can give and receive, but it’s doable.
We are living in dark times when non-disabled women and men are wrecking their mental health and putting their physical health in danger with fad diets and weight-loss jabs, shrinking themselves to an ever-hungry and cold status to please others’ gazes and get likes on TikTok and Instagram. As a society we should be ashamed that we are engendering this, putting people at risk of eating disorders, malnutrition and mental health issues.
We only have one body and if you’re fortunate enough to have one that works properly, you’ve won the jackpot.
Name and address supplied
Self-loathing, shame, isolation and the desire for slenderness are not an intrinsic or inevitable aspect of being fat, as features such as Rose Stokes’ seem to suggest. They are caused by fatphobia. This has been ruthlessly exploited by weight-loss industries, including the contemporary manufacturers of GLP-1 drugs. These purveyors are not called to account when their products fail or harm their users. Instead, fat people are made to feel responsible. We should have tried harder.
For a more balanced view, I invite Guardian editors, writers and readers to consider a social movement that has been active for at least 50 years and which takes a critical view of the obesity‑industrial complex.
The scholarly field of fat studies and the public health model known as “health at every size” are offshoots. There are many of us working in these areas, providing a more nuanced and hopeful understanding of fat subjectivity.
Charlotte Cooper
London
Rose Stokes’ article strikes a chord across the femisphere. I would add that body dysmorphia has never been confined to women whose bodies don’t conform to skinny standards. The body-positivity movement liberated all women from these impossible strictures. It’s no coincidence that as soon as it arrived, and women began to take up more and powerful space, drugs were pumped out to make sure we take less.
Danuta Kean
Hastings, East Sussex