As a Millennial who lived through ‘heroin chic', the Age of Ozempic terrifies me
There are a few rules that those in polite society should always follow. One is avoiding double-dipping when faced with a crudite plate and a bowl of hummus at an event. Another is never – ever! – assume that a woman is pregnant.
Yet, for some reason, this rule has never seemed to apply when discussing celebrities. Most recently, the target was Taylor Swift, who managed to fuel pregnancy rumours after she was spotted wearing a loose fitting mini-dress. Seeing a woman yet again become the target for pregnancy speculation based on something as flimsy as a billowing bit of fabric or a post-dinner burrito belly, this online rhetoric goes a long way in explaining why three in four Australian high school-aged teenagers feel they need to be thinner.
According to the Butterfly Foundation's annual BodyKind Youth Survey released in late May, 90 per cent of Australian teenagers now have some level of concern about their body image. Nearly half said they have never or rarely felt comfortable with their body (up from 40 per cent in 2022), while 75.5 per cent said that they wished they were thinner (up from 62 per cent in 2022). Nearly eight in 10 teenagers said they have been on the receiving end of negative comments about their body or had been teased about their appearance (up from seven in 10 in 2022).
As an older Millennial who came of age in the Heroin Chic era – a time that was punctuated by Kate Moss declaring that 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels', jutting collarbones, pro-anorexia Tumblr accounts and diet tips like 'drink a glass of water every time you feel hungry' – it is haunting seeing this regression.
If the same survey had existed when I was in high school, it's entirely possible that the results would have been scarily similar. That's not to say that nothing has changed in 20 years – because for a while there, things were getting better.
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Though it was far from perfect, the body positivity and body acceptance movement of the past decade actually felt revolutionary in many ways. Seeing pop icon Lizzo declare herself to be 'the baddest bitch alive' in a lycra onesie onstage, felt profound because it was. As did seeing Ashley Graham, a 'plus-sized' model, grace the cover of Vogue in 2017 – the first time in the magazine's 135-year history. We nodded along as Meghan Trainor declared she was All About That Bass and danced along to Nicki Minaj's reinvigorated version of Baby Got Back.
Even Moss herself, the queen of heroin chic, acknowledged the need for change, telling commentator Megyn Kelly in 2018 that she regretted her famous quip and that, 'there's so much more diversity now, I think it's right … it's better'.
But all of this progress wasn't to last. Over the past year, the fashion set – the canary in the coalmine for all things trendy – has profoundly rejected its experiment with broadening its size appeal on the runway. Across the 2024 Spring/Summer runways, just 0.8 per cent of the models walking were 'plus-sized', compared to 2.8 per cent in 2020.
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Thousands of revellers explored the multi-stage, all-night jamboree of music, performance art, and installations that transformed a city block into something resembling a sticky-carpet nightclub adorned with share-house decor. I haven't even mentioned Simon Zoric's Coffin Rides (as it says on the tin) or the Sex + Death Day Spa installation at MONA, where a nana in a white towelling robe at the entry deadpanned options: 'Do you want anal bleaching or a Brazilian?' Did I mention the 90s?
