\n<\/p>\n
While Edie Stark, a San Diego-based therapist with a specialty in eating disorders, stresses that \u201crapid, drastic weight loss is never healthy,\u201d she also cautions against discussing other people\u2019s bodies, fluctuating or otherwise. \u201cBodies are meant to change, and gaining weight is not a failure, just as losing weight is not a prize to be won,\u201d Stark tells Allure<\/em>. \u201cSpeculation is a dangerous game; we do not know what is going on behind closed doors and assuming is never going to end well.\u201d<\/p>\n That is a lesson many of us, especially anyone over the age of 30, should have already learned. Back at the height of the tabloid era in the 2000s, magazine covers would spend one week shaming a singer for daring to have cellulite only to spend the next declaring that an actress or model was \u201cscary skinny.\u201d These articles didn\u2019t include quotes from the celebrities they centered on but rather thoughts from anonymous \u201csources.\u201d<\/p>\n All this hand-wringing about eating disorders on social media strikes me as an accelerated rehashing of that same tabloid coverage, as well as the long history of medically questionable diet literature and culture preying on people\u2019s insecurities. (By the way, the weight loss industry was able to reach a valuation of $90 billion in 2023 despite the proven longterm ineffectiveness of most diet regimens.) Adding a tinge of concern to the conversation doesn’t make it better or more useful. And now that concern is coming from every angle: Whereas prior coverage often felt like one cohesive power\u2014The Media, of which Allure<\/em> is an admitted member\u2014was setting a standard and policing our bodies for us, now the broader collective of everyday people is doing that to itself.<\/p>\n