There’s been a cultural shift and a scary new trend is in

There’s been a cultural shift recently and there’s a sad reality women are now having to face.

The skinny trend is in.

OPINION

“You look so skinny!”

It was a sentence I overheard at a party, and it made me feel like women are doomed all over again.

We are at a tipping in pop culture where suddenly it has become the goal to make yourself as small as possible again, and I’m seeing its impact in my own life.

There’s the friend who texted and asked if we could find a no-carb option when I suggested we get Chinese for dinner.

There was the girl at the party bragging about a weight loss shake she’d discovered, and there was the new zero calorie strain of compliments I am hearing again everywhere.

“Wow you’re so skinny!”

“You look so small!”

“You look like you’re on Ozempic.”

Jackie O has recently lost weight. Picture: jackieo_official/Instagram

Both Khloe and Kim are smaller. Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

You’d have to live under a rock not to see that all our female celebrities are shrinking. Kim Kardashian, Adele, Jackie O, Khloe Kardashian, Mindy Kaling, and the list goes on.

The famous women we all aspire to be are getting smaller and everyone else wants to follow their lead.

Of course, it doesn’t actually matter what a woman weighs.

I make it a point not to ever comment on someone’s weight. It is meaningless. It says nothing about them and it can change in a heartbeat.

I truly don’t believe that weight dictates hotness and I refuse to play into any dialogue that even loosely suggests that.

I think you look as good in your skinny jeans as you do in your fat jeans. I tell my friends they look gorgeous, I don’t tell them they look skinny and I don’t believe their gorgeousness is defined by how much they weigh or how many croissants they’ve eaten lately.

Mindy’s shrunk. Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

Mindy’s also an incredible talent. Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

I understand that when we speculate on famous women’s weight to a certain extent, then we are defining them by it, aren’t we?

Adele has one of the most incredible voices I’ve ever heard, and it seems like an utter waste to talk about her waistline, but I don’t think we can ignore that what celebrities look like impacts the rest of the culture.

I don’t really care that Adele has lost weight but I care about the message her praised slimmed-down figure sends to the rest of the world.

Everyone’s been fawning over her new body and do you know how awful that makes women who live in bodies more like her old one feel? I’ll tell you, pretty awful.

Famous women are our inspirations, our goals, and our heroes to a certain extent, and they create the beauty standards.

Now they’ve started shrinking, everyday women have too.

Adele’s an amazing singer Picture: Instagram

Adele’s body has changed. Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images

We should get into the nitty gritty here. We could talk about how Hilary Duff said she tried to “starve” off breakfast on a podcast.

We could discuss how, according to Victoria Beckham’s husband David Beckham, she only eats steamed vegetables and other equally bland sounding food.

We could express concern over Gwyneth Paltrow’s obsession with bone broth, but I think the details are mostly distracting.

I could tell you how unhealthy and silly that advice is and any sane person would agree with me but that isn’t the point.

The bigger picture is that everywhere I look, women are shrinking.

Rebel Wilson often talks about her weight loss. Source: Instagram

Rebel’s always been gorgeous. Photo: Instagram

I have a friend who has changed her coffee order because she believes the milk in her latte is making her fat and this seems to be the vibe for 2023.

It isn’t that I don’t think women have always been impacted by diet culture but I think we are in the middle of a cultural shift.

We had a few glory years where things weren’t perfect but talking about weight and dieting was considered naff.

We didn’t say the words out loud because they didn’t sound right in 2020, just like skinny jeans don’t look right in 2023.

Something has changed though and it makes me anxious.

“You are so skinny,” has become a compliment again and yet to me it just feels like a slap in the face to all women, even the skinny ones.