Why are women's body types still being treated as trends?

"Bye-bye booty," a stellar piece of lifestyle journalism by the New York Post began, "Heroin chic is back!"

In a Tweet that's since sparked quite a bit of extremely justified criticism, the controversial NYP headline was posted alongside a collage of images of catwalk models and BBL-less Kardashians. Yes, the year is 2022 and yes, we're still reducing women to their bodies and conflating bodies to aesthetics.

Bye bye booty: Heroin chic is back https://t.co/D5yTMWQfWh pic.twitter.com/a7r4a6RzGv
— New York Post (@nypost) November 2, 2022

If, however, you read past the headline, it's clear that the article is not condoning this so-called comeback, but is proliferating awareness of the oh-so-obvious resurgence of a harmful societal fascination with waifishness, fragility, and ever-enticing thinness.

Pointing to Bella Hadid's spray-painted dress at Paris Fashion Week, Miu Miu's lowrise collection, and next-gen models like Lila Moss and Kaia Gerber as examples of platforming thinness as the ideal body standard, the NYP wrote:

"The skinnies sashaying down the runway are a drastic shift from the "slim thick" and body positivity that had been in vogue in recent years ... Even the famously bootylicious Kardashians seem to be turning away from curvy physiques. Kim and Khloé are looking increasingly skinny of late."

Bella Hadid 2022 — Bella Hadid during Paris Fashion Week. Photo: Getty Images.

I will remind you once again, this article was written in 2022. Theorising on the cosmetic work of celebrities — with the Kardashian clan most regularly in the firing line — is all about speculation.

It was never confirmed that Kim and Khloe got Brazilian butt lifts in the first place, and it sure as hell won't be confirmed if they've had them removed. The common thread here isn't their potential body modifications, but our own entitlement to comment on and inspect their bodies for clues.

Nevertheless, these women are the tastemakers of our generation, and if their bodies are changing shape at breakneck speed, we can only imagine the impact this will have on the younger, more impressionable generation.

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The New York Post wasn't the first publication to note the resurgence of the aesthetic of thinness. Back in January of this year, Vogue declared the official return of the 2014 Tumblr girl. Cast your mind back to the height of the grunge girl era: a period characterised by cigarette selfies, reduced saturation and a smudged smokey eye.

A more mainstream interpretation of emo/goth styling, think big side fringes, American Apparel tennis skirts and an intense appreciation for the Arctic Monkeys. Whimsical and artsy on the outside, this subculture was the precursor to a niche facet of the internet where unhealthy glamorisation reigned supreme.

Pro-anorexia forums allowed impressionable teenagers to swap unhealthy eating habits so that they could mirror their 'thinspirations', all while addiction, depression and self-harm became à la mode.

Critically acclaimed for its controversial portrayal of teenage hedonism, UK teen series Skins equated accelerated self-destruction with coolness, and the Effy Stonem effect still lingers on. Effy's waifish character is the perfect portrayal of how poor mental health and reckless behaviours quickly become romanticised and replicated by mouldable viewers.

Now, 15 years later, HBO's Euphoria is providing a similarly subversive depiction of adolescence through a much more present-day lens. Dealing with similar themes of drug addiction, sex, and the complexities of teenage life in the age of the internet, season two truly filled the Skins-shaped hole in our lives.

The HBO series had its viewers in a chokehold. From the makeup and styling to the soundtrack and incredible casting, Euphoria has become an aesthetic in itself. In contrast to the glorified revelry of Skins, Euphoria deigns to showcase the aftermath of the action.

We see the hangovers, the comedowns, and the domino effect that self-destruction has on those around us. Sex, drugs, violence and mental health struggles are all part and parcel of teenage life, and this show manages to capture the zeitgeist of a generation.

We're products of the media we consume, which is precisely why timelines and television make it more difficult than ever to separate the sensationalised from reality. As a society, we've progressed in leaps and bounds since the days of the grunge girl supremacy, but if history is doomed to repeat itself, how do we stop the 2022 rebirth of romanticisation from having the same detrimental impact on mental health and body image?

In response to the NYP article, actress, presenter, and podcast host Jameela Jamil wrote on Instagram:

"I am of the generation of the first wave of this. We never fully recovered. I lost two decades of my life ... We worked so hard and made so much progress and we are not being dragged back."

Jamil ends her post with a reminder that there's nothing chic about a deadly drug addiction, and a rallying cry to defund diet culture and resist coercion into constant extremes. So, are we really going to glorify self-destruction again?

While the fading affect bias may coat the memories of those who were active on Tumblr back in the day in a nostalgia-fueled sugar coating, many are still feeling those negative effects today. Tumblr took a novel approach to sharing experiences online.

An online community where many like-minded people sought refuge in times of strife, the site quickly descended into relishing mutual misery, 'sadposting' and equating thinness, sadness and suffering with beauty and intrigue. Does it all come down to a social media website that reached its peak in the mid-2010s?

Absolutely not.

The cultural fascination surrounding the troubled artist, the tragic woman, and fragile femininity has spanned centuries. Where the likes of Edgar Allen Poe and WB Yeats mused about the delightful despondency of their lovers, the writing of Sally Rooney has been thoroughly critiqued for unifying waifishness with intellect and complexity.

Must we even open the kettle of worms that was mid-90s/early-00s diet culture perpetrated by pop culture? Think of Emily in The Devil Wears Prada starving herself for fashion week, eating a cube of cheese if she found herself feeling faint and saying quirky little things like "I'm just one stomach flu from my goal weight!" Think of leading lady Andy Sachs' progression was marked by her ability to quite literally fit in in her new circle, being described as the "smart, fat girl."

How are we expected to have a normal relationship with our bodies when many of us grew up in a society where these comments were par for the course, disordered eating was not just accepted, but encouraged, and the propulsion towards thinness by any means necessary was normalised, romanticised, and downright fetishised?

While TikTok has been providing similarly problematic footing for body checking, "trending" body types and glamorising unhealthy ideation, the marked difference between it and Tumblr is that it has banned users from utilising the #thinspo hashtag, instead redirecting users towards mental health and disordered eating helplines.

It's been well-documented that the cyclical nature of trends is rapidly increasing, and the 2014 Tumblr girl just serves as a reminder. Nestled somewhere between teen angst and softcore rebellion, this aesthetic has been indelibly linked to pro-ana behaviours, unhealthy habits, and the glorification of self-destruction.

We lived through it once — are we really going through it again, not even a decade later?

RTÉ have reached out to The New York Post for comment.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ.

If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.

Why are women's body types still being treated as trends?

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