2025-08-24 – News – www.theguardian.com
I can’t remember a time when my weight was not connected to my worth, says Lindsay Kirker
Thank you for Arwa Mahdawi’s article (Would an ‘Unsexiest Women Alive’ list be published today? Maybe not – but body-shaming is definitely back, 19 August). I keep hearing about the 1990s being a toxic period for women. But when exactly did that stop? When was this idyllic period in which body acceptance took place? Because I must have missed it. I would have welcomed a break from obsessing about my body, calorie counting, and from the feeling of being a total failure whenever I stopped running.
I was born in 1984, developed early, and was taught that the additional space I took up with my body was shameful. I remember the teacher calling me up to retrieve my test results as the classroom began a steady chant of “Mooooooo”.
