Hi everyone!
Our team was recently having a convo (spirited and procrastinatory, as is our wont) about the things that we *don’t* talk about with friends. We talk about our salaries, our relationships (obviously), our anti-depressants, our weird skin things. Very few topics are actually off limits, except, evidently…Ozempic?
It seems like it’s easy to talk about in the abstract trend way, but harder to talk about with close friends. Luckily, this week’s contributor, Jamie Cattanach, had the same observation and has some thoughts to share.
Read on for her thoughtful meditation on body image in a time of GLP-1s.
Yours in weird skin resources,The Prism Team
Jamie Cattanach is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer whose work has been featured in CNBC, SELF, USA Today, Fourth Genre, Colorado Review, Psyche, and many more. Her in-progress memoir about her experience of atypical anorexia was chosen for the Manuscript Mentorship program at the Tin House Winter Workshop in 2022. Jamie lives in Portland, Oregon with her greyhound, Aspen.
One thing that makes Jamie feel well: An A+ night of sleep and the sweet, soft light of dawn that ends it.
Of course we still want to be thin. It would be easier if we could say so.
The spin studio bustled with bodies, the click-clack of cleats, and thudding bass. It was the day after Thanksgiving, a special “power hour” class instead of the usual 45 minutes. “I’m so ready,” I gushed to the instructor, her glittery makeup shimmering as she greeted each rider. “God knows after yesterday, I’ve got plenty to burn!”
She gave a tight smile and said nothing. Twenty minutes later, between sets of tapbacks, she monologued in the motivational way of spin instructors. “You’re here to take up space, not shrink yourself!” she shouted over the music, politely avoiding my gaze. “We’re getting stronger, not smaller!”
Exiting the studio, I felt moved to apologize. Instead, I thanked her for the reminder. “Those old messages are hard to drown out,” we agreed over a sweaty hug.
But the studio had scheduled the power hour right after America’s biggest food holiday. Extended classes were only ever offered around such feast days. And somehow, if I saw them as compensatory, that was my own outdated programming?
Just a few years ago, it was common to encounter expressly fatphobic messaging in gyms: a personal trainer proffering a physical model of five pounds of fat versus muscle; a sign in the shape of a pint glass that read An extra 20 minutes = one more round! “Don’t lift from your foot,” a barre instructor intoned on a tape I played ad nauseum in grad school, directing attention to the abductors in a leg raise. “There’s no fat there.”
Such direct fatphobia is now outré, at least in liberal-coded circles. We talk about being strong, not skinny. We talk — so much — about taking up space.
I appreciate the intention powering this shift — and I’m glad my friends no longer waste time bonding over food shame or complaining about arm flab. But can we be honest? We still want to be thin, even if the official party line has changed. The wild popularity of Ozempic and its ilk — despite the ~$1K price tag — says the quiet part out loud.