Eating Disorder Fight Club
The Skinni Société sells dieting as a way for girls to reject feminism.
ICYMI, my podcast conversation this week was with the delightful Lauren Leavell. We unpacked some recent toxic fitness trends, like the “fat people can’t do Pilates” myth (that so stubbornly refuses to die!), and the broader “pain and suffering as motivation” approach that shows up with gym bros like Andy Elliott and so many others.
And Lauren said something I keep thinking about:
If we really stop and interrogate why we only feel motivated by someone getting up in our face like this, then we might have to slowly chip away at all the other places where softness has been denied—and love and openness and acceptance have been denied.
WHEW. Why is it so hard for us to embrace softness—in all of the ways, but especially in our bodies? Fatphobia, ofc, but also so many other rules and biases. And all of those rules are inherent to Liv Schmidt’s Skinni Société, where teenage girls are lured in by thinspo propaganda to extreme dieting practices. If you missed my essay on Schmidt’s work earlier this month, you can catch it below.
And I’d love to know: What’s your favorite way to embrace softness?
Right now, mine is definitely ice cream with my middle schooler on hot afternoons. Or for literal softness, this is my “it’s still a little chilly in the mornings” sweatshirt — such a good blue and the perfect weight for a summer sweatshirt (yes that’s a thing!).
-Virginia xo
Skinny Is Not an Act of Rebellion
Liv Schmidt is a 23-year-old weight loss influencer/girl about town. Literally about town; most of Schmidt’s Instagram content is photos of her posing in random spots around New York City, or walking obsessively around New York City or both.
When she’s not peripatetically posing or stopping in at Chanel to pick up bronzer, Schmidt runs The Skinni Société, a subscription-only Instagram group where she dispenses weight loss advice, moderates conversations, and shares her food diaries and workout routines. AirMail estimates that Schmidt has made as much as $130,000 per month off her members. In April, she was heralded as a hero by conservative lady mag Evie for “making skinny go viral.”
Two weeks ago, The Cut ran a piece containing interviews with former Skinni Société members which confirmed what I could tell simply from perusing Schmidt’s free content: Liv Schmidt pushes the women in her membership to cut calories and increase workouts to dizzying levels. The members themselves normalize warning signs like hair loss and irregular periods with tips like “eat like a skinni person: Focused. Feminine. In control,” Schmidt makes Andy Elliott look soft.
And many of her disciples are teenagers.