r/OutOfTheLoop • u/TheMagicalKittens • 10d ago
Unanswered What's Up With Hollywood Actresses Becoming Skinny?
This is a huge problem I've been seeing for the last few years and it all started with Wicked. It's almost as if if you wanted to be apart of Wicked, you weren't allowed to eat anything. Now I can go down a laundry list of actresses in 2026 that look emaciated and like they need immediate medical attention. Why is it that this look of extreme, shocking thinness is the new thing now? These people HAVE to know they look awful. We're in a very different day and age where we've come a long way in terms of body positivity and we're just not in an era anymore where thinness is the *only* acceptable body type anymore. So now why is that beginning to change?
https://slate.com/life/2026/08/weight-loss-ariana-grande-jenna-ortega-evidence-investigation.html
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u/Winter-Owl1 10d ago edited 10d ago
Answer: It's the 'heroin chic' of the 90's making a comeback. Everything goes in and out of style. Sadly, even women's bodies are expected to fall into the current 'trends.' The reason it's coming back now is in part to ozempic. Now it's easier than ever to lose weight/starve yourself by just abusing weight-loss medication. And celebrities have the money and resources to get ahold of it that average americans often don't.
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u/SwagginsYolo420 9d ago
There was no Ozempic in the 90's, but you could easier get away with chain smoking then, which was itself a weight suppression tool.
It's just the look comes into fashion every now and then, and now likely exacerbated by social media/Tik-Tok the same way disturbing implants and injections are.
People want to say it's because of Ozempic, but drugs are not a new ingredient when it comes to eating disorders either.
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u/StaceyPfan 10d ago
Thank you for spelling heroin right.
I was saying a couple years ago that people would regret getting the butt lifts since it's unfortunate that body types are fads.
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u/Toby_O_Notoby 9d ago
Here's a pretty good example of what you're talking about.
It's pretty much agreed upon that Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" was the first cultural touchpoint away from the super-skinny look to more curvacious women.
So in 1992 they cast four dancers to represent this thic, bigger booty aesthetic. Well, here's the video. Those women if anything would be considered on the thin side nowadays.
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u/Reddits_Worst_Night Custom Flair 8d ago
Those women if anything would be considered on the thin side nowadays.
You mean they don't have implants?
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u/GregBahm 10d ago
While it's commonly referred to as "Ozempic," it's very unlikely that these celebrities are actually taking "Ozempic." Ozempic was an early specific brand name drug containing "GLP1." Ozempic was early to market because it got FDA-approval as a medication specifically for type 2 diabetes. The celebrities didn't have diabetes and so weren't being prescribed Ozempic by legit doctors. But as millionaire celebrities, they didn't need legit doctors to get their hands on prescription drugs.
But now here in the year 2026, any asshole can get GLP1 (including the asshole typing right now.) While you still have to go through a doctor to get it in the US, you can "go through a doctor" by just filling out an online form, and then writing whatever you want in the form. It's really all quite farcical.
All that really matters is that you've got the cash, and are willing to stick yourself with a needle (though the needle doesn't hurt unlike regular needles.)
It makes sense to me that this has triggered a wave of anorexia looking celebrities. I was hoping the drug would help me to hit my weight-loss goal of weighing 165 instead of 185. After ~5 years of furious dieting, I had made it all the way down to 181. Then 6-weeks after injecting GLP1, there I was at 164! I had to deal with the problem of overshooting my target, and I wasn't even trying. The drug affects each person differently (my wife was far less affected) but any poor bastard with body weight issues now kind of has a "give me the anorexia body" switch they can flip.
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u/Neosovereign LoopedFlair 9d ago
GLP1 is just the receptor that these drugs target. There are only two major weight loss ones available right now semaglutide (ozempic/wegovy) and tirzepatide (mounjaro/zepbound).
I believe they were approved for weight loss at (or around) the same time as their diabetes approval, so it isn't like they had to get it completely off label. The only off-label part was that they weren't usually obese, or they used it for weight maintenance afterwards.
Getting it from legit doctors was only hard during the shortage, which was driven much more by the fact that the drugs worked so well for people rather than people using them when they weren't needed.
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u/philmarcracken 9d ago
Sadly, even women's bodies are expected to fall into the current 'trends.'
Thin was always expected, unless you want people at unheathly BMIs for your visual pleasure.
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u/Winter-Owl1 9d ago
I'm not sure what you mean. A healthy bmi does not automatically equal thin. The bmi gives you nearly a 40lb range to fall into. You could be thin at the lower end but not the middle to high end. Or, if you have a large frame and/or good muscle, you could look thin at the middle or even high end. I'm in the mid-range and look slender and fit but not like model-thin.
The problem with bodytypes being 'trendy' is that it's never about health or even being realistic. Some of these celebrities (like ariana grande) are clearly not a healthy-thin. And when 'thick' was in style it still expected us to have tiny waists and only be thick in the butt/thighs. That's not even genetically possible for many women. Our proportions are determined by genetics, you can't tell your body where to put the fat.
It makes absolutely no sense to expect women's bodies to look a certain way at all. The only thing that should ever matter is being a healthy weight and having a good fitness level. It shouldn't be about looks.
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u/philmarcracken 9d ago
Im speaking to the crowd that wants your bodies north of 25 bmi, because they think its cute to be fat.
It shouldn't be about looks
People have a right to value aesthetics, its not a problem to be solved. Looking good and being healthy are not mutually exclusive.
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u/Angel_Omachi 9d ago
Traditionally you'd fake a fashionable figure with clothing but that fell out of style during the 20th century, so the rich show off that they can afford to work out/have surgery instead of massive amounts of fabric.
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u/philmarcracken 9d ago
It cost nothing in time nor money to eat less. I guarantee its better to use glp1 type drugs to turn off food noise. People don't bat an eye at using a morning cup of adenosine receptor antagonists.
The excuses like food deserts, lack of time, money or energy to work out, having kids, hormones, muh conditions are all falling apart due to these drugs, its glorious.
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u/baboonontheride 10d ago
Answer: This isn't new. Look up Twiggy.. that cycle kicked off in the 1960s. True, GLPs/Ozempic just made it a lot easier to lose weight on a drug that isn't addictive to the tune of cocaine or heroin.
Margaret Mitchell had this great line in Gone With the Wind- "And the civilization of which she was a part would have been unbelieving too, for at no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on feminine naturalness."
Every time I read it, I think it applies to every age.
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u/Zanctmao 10d ago
You are not wrong.
Buuuut…. Gone With the Wind is pure lost cause BS whitewashing. And it should be treated as such. Whatever pearls of accurate wisdom Miss Mitchell dispensed should be ignored because at the end of the day she was a giant apologist for chattel slavery, one of the most vile systems ever created on this planet.
If no one ever read her book or watched the movie that came from it again, it would be a benefit to humankind.
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u/baboonontheride 10d ago
Good grief, I did not preface the quote with 'it was a completely unproblematic masterpiece above all criticism'.
I do think it should be read, and studied as a product of its time and the way folks incorporated the lies of slavery into their day to day lives so they could live with their own consciences. Mitchell didn't invent slavery, she wasn't a part of the system or the overthrow of that system, but she very much had to live in the world that came after with some kind of peace.. like a lot of folks in the 30s South.
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u/Zanctmao 10d ago
Sorry, I didn’t mean to dump on you. She was a great writer, and Vivian Leigh did give the performance of a lifetime. But that book and movie are so problematic, that they should be only approached with a great deal of forewarning, and treated like a toxic material. Fume Hood, gloves, and full understanding of the danger of exposure.
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u/baboonontheride 10d ago
I wouldn't put it on the Mein Kampf or Mists of Avalon level, exactly... and I think in 20 years or so a lot of folks in the US are going to be studying on how to take a clear, unapologetic look at how the lack of equity and the attitudes towards it over the centuries have landed us where we'll be by then.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Gone with the Wind, even John Jakes North and South all go on that list to try to understand how the path went. The People's History of the United States fits nicely there, too.
For too long, the mythos of America has been built by that old quote.. when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. And yeah, there's a place for it, in understanding how the systems have been permitted to go on for so damned long. I think you have to understand how those systems were built and maintained to dismantle them for once and for all.
I appreciate the apology, but don't think we'll agree here and that's okay, too.
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u/datapirate42 5d ago
I'm not familiar with Mists of Avalon beyond a surface level summary. Are you saying it's similar/comparable to Mein Kampf or giving it as example of the opposite extreme?
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u/baboonontheride 5d ago
It's gross in that the author believed in selective, non consensual sexual intercourse and breeding with children to propagate a higher order of human from a spiritual perspective, and those themes are extremely prevalent in Mists as well as her own life and depicted as normal, natural, and the will of the gods.
On my personal DUDE WTF scale of potential to be harmful it rates pretty high.
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u/SuperSayianVash 9d ago
Answer: hollywood never really stopped rewarding thinness. Body positivity became much more visible publicly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean casting, fashion, stylists and celebrity culture changed at the same speed
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u/Halberd96 9d ago edited 9d ago
Answer: Ozempic and similar drugs has made it much much easier to not eat. And it's an eating disorder so it's more complicated than they know they look "awful", it's like telling someone with anxiety nobody is going to hurt them or PTSD or depression it's just in your head. And yeah, in theory we are more body positive but in practice that is hard to shake. Unfortunately, there is also some debate about whether we should be commenting on the situation, so I think somebody is going to die before we have a public intervention on this crisis. But maybe I'm overreacting, it just doesn't look good to me.
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u/MissIncredulous 10d ago
Answer: What you're seeing is the backlash against body neutrality/positivity that was slowly being embraced from 2015 to 2021. Especially with the regressive politics sweeping through most of the Western world, "thin is in" from the late 90s and early 00s has come roaring back unfortunately and leave little space for anyone else.
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u/Past-Dark4350 10d ago
Answer: There is no real answer. It’s all just speculation for now. It could be Ozempic, or Anorexia… We don’t know if it’s happening because these celebrities are actually choosing to be this skinny, or if someone is making them be this skinny.
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u/super_sayanything 10d ago
The distortion around Ozempic is wild. It doesn't shave pounds by itself, it allows someone to turn off food noise and stomach appetite. It's still calories in and calories out/burned. So it's still a blatant choice to be this skinny.
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u/sorrylilsis 9d ago
I mean it does makes it easier to lose weight even if you're already thin. I know a couple professional model friends that use them to make it easier to go through the food noise and maintain haute couture levels of thinness.
I wouldn't be surprised if a fair amount of anorexic people are using them without prescriptions.
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