Under the Thin-Fluence: How Women Who Look Like Me are Ruining Body Image Acceptance for Everyone

Why is it always the thin, white women who push the hardest hate for larger bodies? My take: Internalized Fatphobia, limited self-awareness, and detachment from intersectional collectivism. Internalized Fatphobia is the devaluing of larger bodies, but it’s also the deep fear or shame of being fat. When you are living in an unsustainable body, you are always living in fear of it’s fragility— meaning, fear of losing your “thin status” at any moment. It is frequently the individuals who are most obsessive about dieting, weight loss, and excessive exercise who push this rhetoric most. This makes the fragility concept all the more obvious— women who live in danger of their own bodies are more likely to project their unprocessed fear onto communities trying to find peace. Low body weight is not sustainable if it is heavily controlled— weight fluctuates for many reasons— including age, environment, genetics, food relationships, mental health, medical concerns, medications, pollutants, stress— the list goes on. This is exactly why the argument of “fat is bad”— especially when coming from a straight-sized woman without any medical or psychological training— is ruining the very important work of Body Image Acceptance. Body weight is meant to change as we navigate life, but for some reason these same people have created a fallacy that influences spectators to feel they should be able to control this (you can’t— and if you can, you are either biologically thin or have an issue with disordered eating).

I’m a millennial so I’m no stranger to people filming themselves doing stupid things on the Internet. I grew up in the era when viral videos (and Jackass) were popularized, and teenagers would sneak onto the computer and watch horrendous, crude, sometimes nauseating online videos. Nothing's changed— except the accessibility of every human being on earth, and less shame for people when sharing their opinions online. There’s always been bullies— it went from the schoolyard, to chat rooms, to messenger, to texting, to anything cyber that maintained some degree of anonymity. Unfortunately, now it seems the mean girls have evolved—  seemingly proud to spread hate, without any humility or compassion.

Beauty standards were problematically thin back then, and wouldn’t you know it, history is repeating itself. With people obsessing, slicing, injecting, changing, shrinking— the hate towards the constant mental exhaustion & physical demand of thinness is projected outwards. Fat people, mid-sized people, thin people— body image distress does not discriminate. No matter the size of a body, you are not exempt from self-criticism & control. That means we all become the target— every single one of us, every single body size. The “jokes”, comments, or blatant hatred towards larger bodies online (and in reality) reinforces the body is not safe unless unsustainably thin— it hurts everybody. Thin-fluencers are ruining body image healing work for all of us.

The size of your body is not the problem— there are many online personalities, myself included, who fit into straight-sized body measurements. It’s using your body as the only commodity for attention, while actively shunning an entire demographic of people— essentially making money off of hurting others. It’s often hidden behind some sort of religious or political belief system that dehumanizes certain groups of people— an obvious red flag to your values as an individual. However it is disguised, it hugely contributes to the increase of eating disorders & body image issues in pretty much every age range, from youth to midlife (see this article that I wrote about the aggressive influx since COVID, especially the increase in youth & women during menopause).

Body Acceptance, a term I use frequently in this line of work, assumes we can find peace in our bodies without controlling or shrinking them. The goal is not to love your body all the time— it is to accept it while detaching moral value from your weight. Simply put: weight gain & weight loss have no inherent value— they just are. Fatphobia creates hierarchy, which means someone is always losing. Thin-fluencers— a term coined to honour online creators when having no clear message other than celebrating being skinny— are more visible than ever. Not only are these profiles aiming to shame others, they are degrading to the creators themselves— reinforcing a woman’s value is only in their body. They’re pushing women so far back into Patriarchy it’s leaving our heads spinning in confusion— how do we accept our bodies as they are, if we have to constantly “prove” our joy exists without starving?

I want to be clear with my purpose in writing this essay— I’m not here to debate the health risks of body size— I’m targeting the moral superiority that thin women on the internet seem to possess. I start to pay attention when those values are regurgitated in public spaces, and intentionally harm the work of trained professionals, as well as ordinary people who are just trying to find peace within themselves. The audacious accusations that people in larger bodies are jealous, unhealthy, and undisciplined, are (lazy) discredited assumptions.

But if we want to dismantle body morality, it goes both ways doesn’t it? Yes— discussing someone’s body size, large or small, is wrong. If we want acceptance for all bodies, we certainly have to behave that way. The oversight in this argument is that not “all” bodies have historically been marginalized. Eurocentric beauty standards & Patriarchy have existed since… well, long before thin-fluencers showed up on the algorithm. Yes, all bodies matter— but when an entire demographic of people are shamed for a higher body weight, dismantling Fatphobia specifically matters most. Hating fat people doesn’t just hurt fat people— it hurts an entire community of people in recovery (both eating & body image) from allowing themselves to trust their bodies.

Ok here’s the research part, because apparently we need proof that fat-shaming people on the internet is bad; there are several systematic reviews, conducted almost yearly since 2022, examining the impact of weight stigma on larger bodies. Every single review concludes that the effects of body shame are more likely to increase eating disorders, decrease desire around movement, and form increased & chronic stress. Weight stigma seeps into medical care as well— a 2025 review concluded that people with higher weight are more likely to avoid physician visits & routine care, out of fear of being shamed. Again, I do not care if you think higher weight is unhealthy— publicly humiliating individuals in larger bodies creates shame, which drives people away from access to support & care. EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE EQUAL ACCESS TO, AND TREATMENT IN, MEDICAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL CARE— REGARDLESS OF SIZE.

Sometimes innocent in intent, however misguided: the joke nothing tastes as good as skinny feels would be less repeated if we understood these narratives actually hurt people. Have we considered the moral cost-benefit analysis of causing others to feel shame? These sentiments lack self-awareness, and certainly fail to respect community healing. I am an eating disorder therapist so I can speak to this with my whole chest— it is frequently the people with the deepest body image issues & eating disorders who feel the need to create this content. I sincerely hope this demographic of people work on shifting their “careers”, beliefs, and attitudes— because one thing is definite: humans age, bodies change. None of us are exempt from this process, and weight fluctuations come right along with it.

I can’t help but wonder what it is about seeing joy in larger bodies that enables a thin person to publicly humiliate an entire demographic of people. The fear of weight gain surely— but in doing so we’re completely neglecting basic human decency & morality. Why make it more impossible to exist in this world without entering a room with only a body to flaunt? Hurting people, to show the world they can survive on crumbs— only to have emotional dysregulation, mood swings, irrational thinking, de-humanizing relationships, and social isolation. I can confidently say, the only people who care about body size are the same people that will treat you like an object of possession— it’s up to you to decide if that’s how life is worth living.