Ok so this was actually from last month but I thought it was worth including because it’s hilarious that anyone even still cares what Gwyneth does. That said, I do think it’s probably a sign of The End Times that she’s back to eating bread, cheese and pasta.
Anyway, it reminded me of a somewhat scathing article I wrote about Gwyneth back in the day for The Metro. I obviously would not quote Naomi Wolf these days but I stand by the rest. Have a read here:
Grateful to Rhiannon Cosslett for talking some sense about Pouch Gate. And she gives us a shoutout which is cool considering how much we slate The Guardian around here.
Diet culture and fatphobia have a new look: SkinnyTok, a toxic community on TikTok akin to the pro-ana Tumblrs of the 90s. Despite fleeting attempts from TikTok to ban certain influencers or show a brief warning message alongside the harmful ‘body trend’ content - ‘you are more than your weight’ - it is still being aggressively promoted on the platform and spreading like wildfire amongst the most prolific users of the app, namely GenZ. Chloe Laws gives a thoughtful take on the evolution of fatphobia for the 2020s: how newer, shinier, even more harmful trends are the symptoms of the backlash to the body positivity movement. SkinnyTok is part of a wider, long-standing system of oppression - Chloe asks, ‘How are we falling for this bullshit again?...we must resist, resist, resist.’
This comprehensive report reviews the insufficient progress worldwide on meeting targets on achieving health equity. It focuses on what produces and reproduces health inequities and available (and proven) policy remedies.
'the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, and people’s access to power, money, and resources—have a powerful influence on these avoidable and unjust health gaps'
This headline had us believing we could wave goodbye to Weight Watchers for good. But on closer inspection it seems they have vowed they are 'here to stay' despite their $1.15bn of debt. Subscriptions are down over 9% so far this year and they've lost over a million members, but its clinical business (the arm selling own brand weight-loss jabs) is up over 50% in revenues. A rebrand in 2018 to 'WW' was apparently a shift in focus to promoting health beyond weight loss, aligning themselves with the wellness trend of the time, and now they're riding the GLP-1 wave. Where the money goes, WW follow, in their never-ending pursuit of thinness.
NHS weight management clinics have taken things to a new level with their ‘spy scales’ for ob*se kids. Kids aged 3-18 are being urged to step on said scales each day, with the results being sent remotely to clinics who can then monitor their weight. But don’t worry, the kids aren’t actually being told what their weight is. They just get ‘supportive messages’ if they’ve dropped a pound or too (like ‘wow!’) - and if they’re gaining weight, they get sent tips on how to restrict their food. This is all a ‘compassionate’ approach apparently, with the National Ob*sity Forum declaring the ‘close surveillance’ as a necessary measure. I really hope Foucault was right that man is reaching his end because JFC.
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