I seem to have bumped my head and landed back in the 1990s, where moral-laden, fact-limited dieting rhetoric runs rife, and only those with the genetic “opportunity” for washboard abs can wear current fashion trends without facing shame.

And just to prove how little has changed — this week, the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, proudly declared that “half [his] colleagues” in Parliament are on weight loss jabs – and vowed to make them more widely available. Apparently, this is fairness. This is the ‘solution’. Meanwhile, those of us working on the ground are left to deal with the fallout of a culture that increasingly sees body control as health policy and shrinking as salvation.

The government is running dangerous weight loss programmes disguised as public health.  The fashion industry has quietly re-embraced the emaciated silhouette.  And celebrities who had once been held up as symbols of more “average” or inclusive bodies are now quietly retreating and reappearing with sharper cheekbones and smaller frames – many thanks, in no small part, to the rise of drugs like Ozempic.

I’m not here to shame anyone – this culture swallows everyone.  The pressure is real, and none of us are immune.  But it’s hard not to notice how quickly the narrative has turned.

The look that once got called skinny chic has crept back in under a new name and a medicalised mask – and we’re applauding it as if this is progress….?

Have we learnt nothing from the harm caused the last time this rhetoric ran rampant?

Of course this culture doesn’t cause every eating disorder — but it absolutely fuels disordered eating. It triggers relapse. It delays recovery. And for many, it lays down patterns that quietly shape a lifetime of struggle with food, body, and worth. It supplies message about control, belonging, value and so much more.

I’ve got research coming soon that speaks to this, but we shouldn’t need more evidence. We’ve been here before. We already know what happens next.

It is heartbreaking to me, because I spend so many hours with folks in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s who are still trying to claw their way back out of the harm.  Folks who believe myths, bad science, and that self-loathing and restriction will make them happy…one day?

But let me be clear about what it is that’s happening.  This is about more than (female) aesthetics and fashion….its about control.  Because a population chasing thinness is a population less likely to rise up.  Women who are hungry, exhausted, anxious, and self-critical…well, they’re easier to manage, easier to sell to, easier to silence.

If women are busy destroying themselves, perhaps they won’t look beyond that to any of the many crises happening around us.

We are being told again, through policy, media, and social pressure – that smaller is better.  That restraint is virtue.  That eating less, shrinking yourself, controlling every inch of your body, is empowerment.

And I, for one, am done with this shit.

We are watching the return of widespread disordered eating dressed up in glossy branding.  We are watching as public health messaging fuels private distress.  We are seeing young people taught that their worth is measured in discipline, deprivation, and disappearing.

This isn’t a trend.  It’s harm.

And while the messaging gets more subtle, the consequences are not.

We know what happens when this narrative takes hold:

• Disordered eating rises.
• People delay or avoid getting help.
• People fail to thrive as their health, wealth, family and lifestyle are reduced.
• People, literally die.

And you know the really sad thing?  For every single person who is trapped in the internal battle of shrinking, the world is deprived of everything they could have been; as a friend, a parent, an innovator, a life saver, a creator – whoever or whatever they may have been, had they thrived.

And we also know who it hits the hardest:
Larger-bodied people.  Disabled People.  Queer and trans people. Those who do not have white or white-passing privilege.  Anyone whose body was never allowed to be “aspirational” in the first place.

This is not about health – it’s about hierarchy.  I don’t want to be accused of being radical, but we fought a world war to resist the ideology of bodily control and standardisation – and yet here we are, watching a new version of it being welcomed with open arms.

I’m angry.  I’m sad.  Mostly, I’m fed up.  And I’m writing this for anyone who feels their body confidence slipping – because this really isn’t about you.  It’s not your failure.  It’s not your fault.  It’s the culture.  And it’s loud right now.

This is a moment – and moments like this shape movements.  If we don’t push back, this one will define a generation all over again.

Let’s be clear: body control is not self-care.  It’s not empowerment.  It’s not health.  It’s a political move, dressed up as personal responsibility.  You are living in a time that is actively trying to make you smaller – literally and metaphorically.  My request to you is: don’t shrink.  Not your body.  Not your power.  Not your voice.

If you work in health, education, therapy, research, media – anywhere that touches lives – now is the time to name this for what it is.  Don’t let it slip past unchallenged.  Don’t let it become normal again.

We’ve been here before.  We know how this ends.
This time, we don’t get to say we didn’t see it coming.
We’ve already lost too much to this culture.  Let’s not lose more.