From Slim to Strong and Back Again: On the Aesthetic Functionality of Women's Bodies in the Public Eye

 Aestheticism through Asceticism 

Back in the 90s, women were kept skinny. Late night dinners were traded for low rise jeans, and you were considered successful if you could subsist in a calorie deficit. Kate Moss was heralded as the body to strive for, and no amount of hunger pains couldn’t be fixed with a diet coke. 

The oppression of diet culture and corporeal pressure placed upon women’s bodies was, by this time, nothing new. Take July Garland, for example. Years earlier she was famously told to smoke more and eat less in order to maintain a youthful figure during filming for the kids’ film, The Wizard of Oz in the 1930s. 

This narrative suggested that it wasn’t enough for your body to be instrumentalised for household labour or male pleasure. It also had to be desirable, youthful, and above all, small enough that it wouldn’t take up too much space.  

Then in the early 2000s, the growth of surveillance culture through the rise of social media platforms meant that women were no longer just expected to be vessels for the realisations of men’s pleasures. 

Instead, they should be pleasurable to look at via screens which went beyond the infamous page three girls. This indicated the usurpation of utility by aesthetics for women’s bodies. In a post-truth society reminiscent of Guy Debord’s Spectacle, the photo replaced the real, and women’s bodies were both literally and figuratively shrunk down or otherwise blown up (on billboards). These images reified a distant and unattainable version of the female form that was meant to tempt men - and ultimately taunt women. 

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Skinnyness signalled both that we should take up less space, at the same time that it would “award” us with more visibility in a society which valorised us based on our desirability to the male gaze. 

If we could achieve this aestheticism through asceticism, and thus not only be, but consume less, even better. Were we still living during the feudal times, I might be tempted to put this down to a hierarchical desire to harbour resources amongst the elites - in this context: male elites. 

In the modern world, however, Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick suggests that homosocial bonds allow men to protect and preserve the patriarchal systems of power which allow them to maintain their power over women. To extend this idea, we might speculate that women’s asceticism is encouraged by men to ensure that they remain weak, thus allowing men greater access to the available resources - and to the women themselves.  

This value system certainly wasn’t - and isn’t - helped by the comparison of self-surveillance culture facilitated by online Ana communities and the rise of the filtered, photoshopped image which gave us both the tools and the blueprint of how to achieve this idealised body type. 

Strong vs Skinny 

Fortunately, these weren’t the only communities facilitated by online media. These platforms also gave scope to the body positive movement, which strove against the notion that less was more or that value lay within skin and bones. 

Perhaps one of the most prevalent narratives of this movement was that which began to view food as fuel rather than something to be avoided at all costs. This of course has its own problems which emit the cultural and social value of nutrition, but at least it meant women were eating again. Subsequently, our bodies once again earned themselves a functional status beyond being a receptacle for male pleasure and childbirth. Instead, women were striving for strength over skinniness and muscle over malnourishment. 

However, those looking to lift weights rather than weigh themselves didn’t all flock to gyms. Women also took to working out in the safety and privacy of their own homes, with key figures like Anna Engelschall and Julieta Puente offering intense home workouts which focus on “growing” and “glowing” - as opposed to shrinking and shriveling, supposedly. 

Significantly, many of these female fitness influencers tell a similar story: of overcoming their debilitating desire for skinniness to realise that strength required sustenance. Thus, their fitness channels were born. 

Once again this self documentation and surveillance culture facilitated the social categorisation of our online identities. Enter: The Fitness Girly. 

Variations upon this umbrella term included the gym girl, the yoga or pilates girl, the clean girl, and the hot girl. Of these specific variants, the “pilates body” in particular is perhaps the one which bears the most resemblance to the idealisations of the early 2000s, if only for the dual criticism and celebration it’s been subjected to. 

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There are some who swear that reformer pilates delivers the radical reform presented by many of its (cult?) followers. They show off their abs and tiny waists, with arms that are thin but not bulky, and strong enough to support their match latte. All, of course, in expensive matching gym sets which just happen to endorse whichever studio they’ve bought into, sorry, a membership for. 

[https://www.instagram.com/p/DQRM1tpgNcl/]

Others refuse to believe that pilates alone could deliver the ripped tonality that categorises this body type. All of this criticism seems to overlook the multitudinous factors which can influence a person’s body type, from diet and physical activity, to hormones and biological processes, as well as economic, environmental, societal, and geographical factors. 

Women who lift, “strong women” groups, women running communities etc, all emphasise women’s prioritisation of autonomous ability over aesthetics. 

The fact that all of this is documented perhaps feels worthy of another article about the validity of a supposedly self-serving narrative presented on a public facing platform - which is often also monetised in a way which caters to capitalism. If gym-goers drop a dumbbell in a gym and no one’s around to hear it, etc etc. Nevertheless, I digress. 

Starvation Without The Stigma 

The point is, it’s no secret that recently, thin is once again “in”. Yet, this time, the response is not simply self-willed starvation. Before, we didn’t have the same “insights” into the lives, fitness routines, and bodily acceptance journeys of “normal” people with a significant online following. Now, the slimshakes have been discarded for something far more effective, and far more dangerous: Ozempic. 

These “miracle weight loss drugs” like semaglutide and tirzepatide (otherwise known as Ozempic or Mounjaro) were originally approved for type 2 diabetes and related weight management. Once people realised that these injectable drugs worked as appetite suppressants, however, they began using them for weight loss. 

This is essentially starvation without the stigma - or the willpower. 

Whilst this is a worrying misuse of medication which creates likely unsustainable results, that’s not the worst of it. Not only is the demand for this “miracle weight loss drug” creating a lack for those who actually need it, but the side effects can range from feelings of nausea to death.  

Although these jabs have been normalised by celebrities shedding pounds and serial dieters who swear nothing else has worked, they arguably lend themselves to worsening relationships with food and with our bodies. While there seems to be more of a general appraisal of these methods of weightloss, the idea that you’ll achieve your dream body or “get your life back” by deliberately suppressing your appetite doesn’t seem altogether that far flung from more severe disordered eating patterns — for which the 90s in particular were well known. 

There is a huge difference though, between those injecting semaglutide now instead of diamorphine then. Back in the 90s, people didn’t have the same accessibility to, or quantity of, documented material which would allow them to reflect not only on how many types of women’s bodies there are, but also how quickly these bodies are subjected to fleeting and changeable beauty standards. 

These female-built communities online provide evidence of what a protein fuelled, strong body can look like. And, moreover, what it can be capable of. 

Just because ‘thin is in’ is trending now, doesn’t mean that it ever really went away.

However, the female body in particular remains subjected to relentless beauty standards. These are so often centred around women’s size and weight, the quantity of people still suffering - and dying - from eating disorders, and most recently the rise of Ozempic as a “solution” to fatness. All this suggests that while strength was a strong point for a while, Kate Moss’s words have never quite been silenced. 

Perhaps the battle is not one between aesthetics vs functionality, but rather between functionality and consumption. 

If we needed any further proof of this we need only look at the surge in protein-rich products on supermarket shelves. In a recent New York Times piece, Katrin Bennhold wrote about the concerns of those desperate to lose fat on Ozempic since deliberate appetite suppression has a negative impact on muscle mass. 

Making up for Muscle Mass: 

If you’re a gym girly and an Ozempic girly, you could be lacking the necessary proteins you need to build muscle, since consuming less overall includes consuming fewer of the proteins you need to grow. In response, the protein market has grown exponentially as protein producers have monopolised on these overlapping social categorisations which suggest that women ought to be both strong and skinny. 

The result? That we’re becoming even more self-obsessed and alienated from the foods that we eat than before, with protein overtaking pleasure when it comes to our daily consumption habits. 

As companies continue to profit off of the standards and insecurities placed upon human bodies, perhaps the battle is not one between aesthetics vs functionality, but rather between the latter and patterns of consumption not just by but but, crucially, of the female body.