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Learning to Love My ‘Before’ Body in an ‘After’ Body World

Following a brief period of body positivity, we have a new trend: claiming moral superiority for ‘doing the work’ to create a radically transformed body through whatever means necessary

If you spend any time on social media you have probably been fed a picture or ten of a person who is posing in a bikini or workout clothes.

They look great.

Then you realize that this is a “before” picture.

The implication is that this perfectly fine-looking body needs an upgrade.

Suddenly, an “after” picture flashes on the screen, and about a third of this person’s body has disappeared. People get praise for this, for looking like they are starving themselves and/or enduring punishing workouts in pursuit of a vastly slimmed-down version of themselves, sometimes with ripped abs and other times looking frail.

After a brief period of “body positivity,” it seems that looking underweight is back in style.

Think Kate Moss in the early 1990s when the revoltingly named “heroin chic” reigned supreme.

From the Guardian, late last year:

In a recently published annual report that analyzed procedures done in 2023, the world’s largest plastic surgery organization noted that demand for an ideal “ballet body” is driving interest in liposuction and breast enhancement. Since ballet is notorious for eating disorders, one imagines it might also drive an increase in women starving themselves.

Looking emaciated became so trendy that it had a hashtag on TikTok called #SkinnyTok. It has now been banned thanks to European Union regulators, who were concerned about the extreme dieting that was being promoted to teens.

Still, the Instagram account “@very.skinny” has more than 200,000 followers for posting this kind of content, which is still available all over the platform.

I’ve written before about my struggle with body image, which led to disordered eating for much of my life. I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been had I been exposed to the kind of content around body and dieting that younger people are exposed to today.

For a long time, when we discussed body image, we were almost always talking about girls or women. But now it’s coming for the boys and men. I learned about the picture below going viral via David Roberts Substack. Apparently, men prefer the “after” picture, and women the “before” picture.

While I’ve seen many writers pinning the skinny epidemic on Ozempic, I think that gets it backward. People aren’t obsessed with their body composition or size because of Ozempic. Those who are taking it without having a medical reason are doing so because the culture has long convinced them that they have a moral duty to make their bodies smaller.

What I’ve noticed is that in the “before” pictures, the people look good, but there is nothing extreme about their bodies.

This seems to be the problem.

In the US, extremes rule the day—whether it’s how you eat, exercise, or practice your religion or politics.

This is why some of the people who are transforming their bodies aren’t just trying to lose ungodly amounts of weight. They are also working to be “jacked” and “shredded.”

Why? What is the point of all of this?

While many Americans work out and eat in extreme ways because they have been told that it’s good for their health, there is zero evidence to support this.

Yes, I know wellness influencers say that it is good for you, but common sense says the opposite. After all, Italians live longer than Americans by five years and are healthier without any of this obsessive-compulsive behavior around food and exercise.

To be clear, I’m not judging.

As I’ve said, not that long ago I was an adherent to this kind of living. For a long time, I was vegan and did hot yoga in a room that was 95 degrees and 50 percent humidity for 90 minutes 4-5 days a week. I’ve done all the eating protocols (diets) and intense workout regimes. I cut out all the “bad” foods (gluten, dairy etc). I almost passed out at CrossFit multiple times.

Even though I’ve intentionally moved away from the disordered eating and exercise, I absolutely understand how living in the US can make it seem not just normal but praiseworthy.

I guess I’m just marveling at how jarring all of this looks from where I’m sitting now.

Since moving to Italy six months ago, I rarely do any kind of formal exercise, eat all food groups and don’t deny myself the pleasure of eating food I like. I have more energy and better digestion than I ever did following all the crazy food and exercise rules the US wellness industry pushes.

Unlike other people who lose weight when they come to Italy, I have gained 10 pounds, because I now eat whatever I want, which I had just started doing in the US before I left.

This puts me 15 pounds above what I had deemed my ideal body weight (based on no data). I’d be lying if I said I was totally at peace with it, but I’m getting closer. At least I’m not starving myself to get to that stupid “ideal” body weight.

When I told a friend here that I felt out of shape, she was flabbergasted. I tried to explain the body obsession in the US that is often tied to ‘health’ but it sounded so crazy that I just stopped. There is nothing wrong with my body and yet the US conditioning clearly hasn’t worn off. I imagine it will take a long time for that to happen.

I don’t have a ‘before’ body that needs “‘work.” I have a body, period.

What’s even worse than the extreme diets, demonizing of food groups, and punishing exercise is how that behavior is being glorified.

It’s no longer enough to look “perfect”—whatever that is—but you need to show you are making an effort (“doing the work”), spending gobs of money, and often enduring pain to achieve whatever results you are crowing about. We’ve gone from people hiding their plastic surgery and aesthetic upgrades to expecting applause.

Jessica DeFino explains:

[I] keep coming across TikTok and Instagram videos from women who take offense to comments that imply they’re “naturally pretty” and prefer to be seen as “doing the work.” They’re reframing aesthetic labor as worthy labor, as a sincere and important effort that should be appropriately recognized and rewarded. After all, why give “nature” the credit when you put in the time, endured the pain, and paid the bill? It’s a girlboss hustle culture for glow-ups and a Protestant work ethic applied to prettiness.

Which is why there are so many Americans throwing shade at people losing weight with Ozempic: they aren’t doing the work.

Once you realize that hyper-capitalism, with a big dose of Puritanism, is behind almost every trend in the US, you can’t unsee it.

What has been normalized as health and wellness in the US often resembles nothing so much as disordered behavior with better marketing. We’re not just expected to look “perfect”—the process of achieving that perfection must be documented, commodified, and celebrated.

The pain becomes part of the performance.

But don’t we already have enough pain in our lives? Do we really need to do things that make our lives harder or less enjoyable in the name of some distorted, hyper-capitalist beauty ideal?

The question answers itself.

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© 2025 Kirsten Powers
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104