In recent media, I have noticed a resurgence in the desirability of thinness. This body type was especially common in the early 2000s, with the popularity of low-rise jeans, tight-fitting long sleeves and extremely thin celebrities being treated as the beauty standard. It is a part of the media that most current college students remember growing up with. However, the beauty standard eventually began to shift. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, curvier bodies became more accepted and even celebrated, with figures that emphasized wider hips and fuller bodies becoming increasingly popular in media and social media.
Now, we are seeing another shift back toward thinness. I believe the idea that thinness is the ideal body type, regardless of the health repercussions, has been waiting in the shadows for its time to reemerge. Unfortunately, this isn’t a new cycle. Beauty standards have constantly changed throughout history but consistently circled back to thinness. The 1920s had the thin, almost boyish look of the Flapper. The 1960s brought the “Twiggy” look. The 1980s and 1990s popularized the sickly “Heroin Chic,” and the early 2000s brought us the small-waisted Y2K body standard. Now, in 2026, we are seeing another shift toward thinness, this time accompanied by the popularity of GLP-1 medications.
I want to be clear that I do not think there is anything wrong with someone choosing to change their body. Everyone has the right to make their own decisions about their body. If someone needs medication or a procedure that will improve their quality of life, then I say go for it. Overall, I support happiness, and it’s not really my business.
The problem comes when an individual decision becomes a societal expectation.
When thinness becomes the body type that is constantly praised, shown in advertisements, worn by celebrities or presented as the goal, it can create the idea that being thin is the only way to be attractive.
A lot of people struggle with body image and their relationship with food at some point in their lives. Constantly being surrounded by images of what we are supposedly supposed to look like can perpetuate those struggles.
The problem is that there is no single body type that everyone is supposed to have.
Everyone has different genetics. Two people can eat similar diets, exercise the same amount, live very similar lifestyles and still have completely different bodies. Comparing yourself to someone else does not make sense when your bodies are always going to be genetically different.
Media makes this comparison even harder. It is not just social media or celebrities that create unrealistic expectations for body image. Movies, television shows, cartoons and animated characters all contribute to what we see as a “normal” or desirable body. A lot of these characters are designed with extremely thin proportions that are not realistic for most people, but because we see those bodies so often, they can still influence what we think we are supposed to look like.
I used to have a friend who constantly talked about wanting the body type of Jinx, a character from the Netflix series Arcane. Jinx is portrayed as extremely thin, with a figure that looks almost skin and bones at times. Obviously, Jinx is an animated character and was not designed to be a realistic representation of the average human body. But that does not mean the image cannot affect how someone views their own body. When someone looks at a character like Jinx and thinks, “I want to look like that,” it shows how easily even fictional characters can become part of someone’s concept of an attractive body.
It is easy to look at someone online, on television or even in a fictional world and think that their body is something you should be able to achieve if you just work hard enough. But that is not always true. A fictional character does not have to eat or sleep, and they don’t have a metabolism. A celebrity may have genetics that are completely different from yours. An influencer’s photo may be edited. Comparing yourself to these images and expecting your body to look the same is setting yourself up for failure.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying a character or thinking someone looks good. The problem is when an unrealistic body becomes the standard we use to judge ourselves.
Beauty standards are going to continue to change. Eventually, the current obsession with thinness will probably fade just like the standards before it. But I think we should be careful about allowing another cycle of body trends to convince us that our bodies are wrong.
Being skinny is not the desired body type.
Being healthy is, and health does not look the same on everybody.
