“Due to coronavirus, my summer body will be postponed until 2021.” Usually this kind of garbage only hits my feed when Jameela Jamil is ranting about #teatox. I’ve worked hard to unfollow any content that’s generally annoying or makes me feel like shit. But since the government issued its guidelines to shelter in place, there’s been a particularly insidious undertone to the posts popping up that I just can’t shake.
Despite the fact we’re going through an unprecedented health crisis, the prevailing message on social media right now is that we’re somehow supposed to be “making the most” of our time spent indoors. Write that novel! Organize your closet! Bake bread! Get quarantine fit!
Now, I don’t blame anyone for taking up a new hobby in order to distract themselves. You can only have so many conversations with your cat until you begin to feel completely deranged. But that last one—the idea that we should be using all this “extra time” to lose weight, or at least not gain any—moves beyond feeling productive and gives into a societal fear I thought we were moving past: Getting “fat.”
The collective fat panic I’ve seen as I scroll through social media is, frankly, appalling. “So will the producers of 600-Pound Life just find me or…” reads one meme that’s surfaced more times than I can count. A photo of Barbie next to a heavier “Carbie” (get it? she ate too much during quarantine? LOL!) has more than 120,000 likes on @girlwithnojob.
But it’s not just the obviously offensive fat jokes that meme accounts and out-of-touch influencers are posting. What’s more shocking are the dozens of frantic weight-gain comments—almost all masked in sarcasm or wry self-deprecation—I’ve seen close acquaintances post. These are smart women—the ones who usually rally against diet talk and fatphobia—that are sharing photos of cookies with captions like, “Going to have to buy a size up after this” or “Looks like I won’t be wearing jeans ever again.” Eating the pasta is what you’re worried about? Okay.
It’s not just within my circle of friends either. An alarming number of people, it appears, are publicly broadcasting their fear that this time indoors will cause them to gain weight.
“I’m seeing so many memes that show before COVID-19 body and after COVID-19 body, or jokes comparing ‘COVID 15’ to the Freshman 15,” says Elizabeth Denton, a writer who lives in Los Angeles. “At first I chuckled, but then I thought about what that means. Whoever posted that thinks ‘fat’ bodies are funny or something to be ridiculed.”
It’s something even body-positive influencers like Megababe’s Katie Sturino are surprised to see. “First of all, why are we even talking about our bodies? Why aren’t we talking about the fact that we’re in a world crisis or what can we do to help other people?” says Sturino. “I’ve seen so many things like, ‘Don’t let your new sedentary lifestyle get you down!' All of the sudden the term beach body is everywhere again.”
“I think it’s a control issue,” says Michaela, 28, who works in social media and recently began muting people for complaining about their weight. “I’m empathetic to the fact that people might be personally concerned about putting on a few pounds during this time, given that everyone’s routine is out of sorts at the moment—those thoughts have definitely crept into my mind at times too. But what’s concerning to me is how many influencers are sharing that message with their huge audiences. People don’t realize that talking negatively about their bodies at this time could really trigger similar feelings in other people.”
Even still, Denton points out there’s a certain kind of clout growing amid all the weight gain panic. “I think it's socially acceptable now—and almost ‘cool’—to be worried about weight and your body on social media,” she says. “The wellness industry in general has become a bit toxic.”
As much as I wish I could say I just scroll past these comments and roll my eyes, I can’t. I’ve got so many legitimate things to worry about—my paramedic boyfriend has COVID-19, my mom lost her job—and yet the endless stream of workout challenges and hysteria around weight gain keeps shifting my focus back to my body. For the first time in nearly a decade, I feel the creep of calorie anxiety settling back in. I wake up, walk to the bathroom, then pull out the scale before the thermometer. It shouldn’t be like this.
“It's made me worry about the weight I'm at right now,” says Denton. “If I see a friend call their thighs ‘COVID weight’ and they’re smaller than mine, what does that mean about me? If I see friends risking their lives to go outside and exercise around others, I wonder if I should be that diligent about my workouts. Maybe I only took a 20-minute walk and they post their nine-mile run.” Denton says she’s trying to cope with that anxiety by logging off from social media—but that’s not always easy when her job depends on her being online. Like Michaela, she’s also had to mute friends. “I feel bad, but I don’t care about your workout, and you probably don’t care about mine.”
The toxic focus on weight has been particularly triggering for those who have eating disorders or who are in recovery, especially because the isolation caused by sheltering in place makes treatment harder.
“I’ve seen tons of memes about ‘gaining the COVID-19.’ I’ve even been targeted with weight loss ads specifically geared to the fact that I’ll have ‘stubborn fat’ post isolation,” says Ruthie Friedlander, cofounder of The Chain, a nonprofit network for women in fashion and media who are coping with eating disorders. “I wish I could say this is simply more of the same noise that I’m used to dealing with. I’m a realist: I live in a world where there’s media that’s not going to be sensitive to the fact that I have an eating disorder. But this feels different to me given that there’s a serious world health crisis going on. Not only are ED sufferers dealing with worsened symptoms or behaviors, but we’re also dealing with the general anxiety around the virus. It sort of feels like being hit when I’m already down.”
Listen, this isn’t to say finding outlets for all our pent-up rage and energy is a bad thing. This sucks!!! We all need a way to keep our chill. If that’s baking a loaf of sourdough for you? Great. If that’s doing the push-up challenge, I don’t get you, but sure. I can say with certainty that YouTube workouts have been helping keep me sane while I’ve been locked in my 600 sq. ft. Brooklyn apartment. It’s undoubtedly better for my health than screaming at my TV during yet another press conference.
“I’m actually exercising more than I ever have in 10 years,” says Sturino. “I need the energy release because I’m so anxious. But in no way, shape, or form, do I view it as ‘I’m going to get into smaller pants—or now I can eat a pan of brownies.’ I’m not attaching the two. Don’t feel so much pressure to come out of COVID with a ‘new’ body.”
As for all the memes? By all means, keep the jokes about wearing the same sweatpants coming. Seriously, please. I need something to look at for the 1 hour and 48 minutes Instagram tells me I’m spending on it a day. But as Friedlander puts it: “Words matter. There are so many ways to be funny, so many work-from-home memes to be made. Body image and weight are just subjects that shouldn’t be touched.”
Lindsay Schallon is the senior beauty editor at Glamour. Follow her on Instagram @lindsayschallon.
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