Don’t let the weight-loss industry shame you into thinking “back to normal” means a return to intermittent fasting and appetite suppressant lollipops.
As the pandemic has raged, we have been told to sequester ourselves to stay well and safeguard others. For many of us, that has meant living a more housebound life than normal.
We have developed an intimate familiarity with the textures of our couch. We have grown deeply attached to the softest items in our wardrobe. We have pounded vitamin D supplements to compensate for our vampiric relationship to the sun.
Now as we slowly emerge from our collective hibernation, it’s unsurprising that many of our bodies have changed.
But where we might see new curves, the $70 billion-a-year American weight-loss industry sees only profit. And so the dieting hustlers and charlatans have been pelting us with offers of products and routines that promise to strip us of the “quarantine 15” (while stripping us of our cash).
As we show in the Opinion video above, those opportunists are simply preying on our insecurities at a particularly vulnerable time as we re-emerge into society and propagating the age-old myth that weight is the best measure of someone’s health.
If there was ever a time that we should be kind to ourselves and to others — especially about our bodies — that would be now. You’ve been living through a pandemic and doing your part to end it. That’s reason to feel good.
Tala Schlossberg (@TalaSchlossberg) is a producer and animator with Opinion Video.
