Is the era of body positivity over? How a new generation became obsessed with thinness

Women's magazine editors, body diversity activists and medics all agree on one thing: the thin ideal is back. Having lived through 'heroin chic' and the rise of the body positivity movement, Kate Demolder argues the biggest loss is not weight

The slogan 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' is regularly attributed to Kate Moss

The dangerously thin ideal — the kind that brought us the indefensible phrase ‘heroin chic’ in the nineties and early aughts — is back, cutting short the hazy, body diversity chapter which saw women of different shapes and sizes, albeit briefly, find a seat at the table.

“Thin is back in, that’s for sure,” body confidence, self-acceptance and lifestyle influencer, Alex Light, shared in a recent Instagram post. “I’m seeing more and more fashion brands reverting back to using only super thin models to model their clothes after a brief period of attempting body diversity — it’s such a shame. And it has such a knock-on effect on us, doesn’t it?”