Gen X mothers skewed our #BodyPositivity
Written by Anna Bussabarger Graf
When we think of the 80s, typically the best parts arrive first. The spandex! Neon! Synth pop and big hair!
The pervasive part we all ignore… the body dysmorphia and control of the media in body depictions. Coming of age during this time couldn’t have been easy for body image. Then immediately following was the age of supermodels…Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Kate Moss. Moss has a cult following and problematically said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” That’s the legacy we’ve inherited. That’s the messaging that Gen X women received.
Gen X women came of age with all kinds of fad diets: fat free, Atkins, and Jenny Craig. If they weren’t doing the diet programs, then they were taking medications including Dexatrim and Fen-Phen. Many were taking uppers disguised as the secret to shed pounds. Advertisements featured hardly any inclusive sizing range, let alone inclusivity of models. It was normal to see magazines focusing on losing fat and getting better bodies. This type of media exposure and pervasiveness of dieting leads to the modern-day phenomena of 25 Again, Nutrisystem, and intermittent fasting. What happens when these same women become parents?
The offspring of Gen X women would most likely fall in the Millennial and Gen Z populations (maybe a smattering of Gen Alpha). We’ve had our own body issues due to social media exposure: the immense saturation of #thinspo in 2013 that led to #fitspo which today manifests as filters and influencer aesthetic. Hint: most times influencer aesthetic tends to veer towards euro-centric standards and skinny. The National Organization of Women reported from their Love Your Body campaign[i] that, “at age thirteen, 53% of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies.” This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen.” It then goes further and reports that as far as dieting practices in the family, “46% of 9-11 year-olds are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets, and 82% of their families are ‘”sometimes” or “very often” on diets.” The culmination of exposure to our mother’s body talk mixed with the social media environment makes a dangerous viewpoint. Throughout this piece, I focus on femme repercussions but it’s not exclusive. Men can internalize this through orthorexia and their own gendered body standards. It may not be the exact same, but another similar skew. When we’re all gathering around the table for family dinners, the diet culture doesn’t miss us.
Body positivity has been prevalent and that’s not something to overlook in this argument. It’s been fantastic to finally see representation across the board. Whether that’s been in lingerie (Savage x Fenty and Parade) to personal care (Dove Real Beauty campaign) advertisements, the change has been resounding in the past 20 years. This is no longer “your mother’s media”. We’ve changed! Except for we haven’t. This representation and body positivity prevalence can hide the true beast underneath the surface. Lots of the content that’s most popular still skews to what is hetero-normative. How many women applaud the media now, yet still manage to comment on other women’s bodies? Or better yet, compare their bodies to one another?
The reboots of all the popular aesthetics still contain the nefarious sizing messages. Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show was on while Gen X women were in the fix for lingerie and while Gen Z was growing up. We may have not known as much, but we all were profusely absorbing the bombshell aesthetic. Very skinny, blown-out hair, yet the bra could hardly contain it all. It soon grew out of fashion until the point that it was canceled in November of 2019. What happened next? It supposedly was revamped for more inclusion. While it may have looked different than the past in 2024, the statistics convey their original messaging. There were only 6 plus-size looks—many of them modeled in more conservative ensembles. Internet warriors emerged after the show claiming that, “real, it’s not about being inclusive, it's about looking good.” The brand itself claims to now be more reflective of women, but it won’t expand its sizing further. The internet was even making fun of Tyra Banks for being “heavier”... when she’s now a size 6. The entire event still has this muck entrenched in it.
Another similar occurrence is the re-emergence of Tumblr girl aesthetic. The Gen X mothers weren’t partaking, but they sure witnessed it the first time. This time the movement claims to also be more inclusive. Yet we still see much of the same very-skinny aesthetic and inherent pervasiveness of the cis white women in it. The very core of it is enmeshed in how much women cared about showing off being skinny through crazy-cute outfits: shortie shorts, thigh gap, and fishnets. Our mothers may not have understood the aesthetic, but they understood the skinny obsession. It had morphed from spandex to indie-slease.
The greatest Gen X female figureheads for all of this? Kourtney and Kim Kardashian. Talk about another reboot, or serious maintenance mode, from the aughts. They have morphed from the original days of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” to the modern version of “The Kardashians”. They’ve taken it from broadcast on E! to Hulu. They popularized the Brazilian Butt Lift for years… until all of a sudden, they were skinny. Kim attended the Met Gala in 2022 in Marilyn Monroe’s old dress. All of us were wondering, “How is this possible?” The family seemed to have slimmed down overnight and America was following suit. The masses were clamoring for Ozempic, even when they really might not have needed it. The days of Dexatrim have innovated to GLP-1 injectables. Even Weight Watchers, another program around in the days of our mothers, has been updated to an app and GLP-1 provider. The messaging is pervasive. As far as we have come, here we still are obsessing over obtaining slimmer body physiques. Some might claim that celebrities don’t have as much sway over that anymore—they’re right. Now social media & influencers have taken some of that piece of the pie. Another that has remained is how people still casually compare bodies between femmes. Repeatedly, my body has been compared to my sister’s (by multiple different people). We kid ourselves into saying, “It’s not like before.” No, it’s not. Yet we’re still engaging in the very behavior we call toxic that our mothers did. They were forced into those thought patterns, whereas we have more control. We have found our way back there, even if it looks different.
The idea of this essay was inspired by my friends gathering together and opening up about it. At a young adult sleepover last year, some of my best friends and I were talking about the insecurities of loving our body and how our mothers had pushed diets onto us over the years. We all had been friends for YEARS, yet this was one of the first times we had truly opened up on the subject. How was it that we were exposed to “body positivity” but we still had discomfort with our curves? We were able to look around the room and trace exactly why. One of my friends is curvy, while her mom is skinnier. Another has been on numerous diet programs with her mom for years. It’s a shared thing they do together, alongside shopping. Mine is due to having an “almond mom” and hearing about body shame, no matter what size she is.
Media has been catching up, but we haven’t. The issues any more go beyond representation—they lie in the parenting and belief systems still inherited. Your mother’s voice and body beliefs are still calling…nostalgia has a ring to it. Nothing tastes as acidic as this feels.
