The algorithm has spoken. Body positivity is no longer cool. The movement that once had the internet embracing fat rolls, hip-dips, arm jiggles and off-the-runway bodies has been quietly demoted. We’re back to ’90s-era skin and bones, back to obsessing over our weight. We knew a backlash was coming, but no one was prepared for it to be this reedy.
Fashion didn’t even pretend to fight it. Sure, some lingerie brands put chubby mannequins in the shop display, and put their precious wings on curvy women. But on the whole, sexy-chonky models have vanished from Spring-Summer 2026 shows. Zara ads have been banned in the UK for promoting thinness, even as their website models and sample mannequins remain skinny, flat on the front and back. Remember the proudly curvy women we put on a pedestal? Mindy Kaling, Adele and Meghan Trainor are all in their slim eras now. We used to parody the Almond Mom – the parent who polices her child’s meals – in Reels . Now, she has re-entered the chat as a hero, not a villain.
It’s almost like being happy with your shape was a fad, because championing a regular body shapes now puts you in the back of the shop, with last season’s styles. Not everyone’s up in arms. But some advocates of body positivity are still fighting for the radical idea that one’s BMI doesn’t need to be trending to be worthy. Prableen Kaur Bhomrah (@PrableenKaurBhomrah) is one of them, and she has thoughts.
{{/usCountry}}It’s almost like being happy with your shape was a fad, because championing a regular body shapes now puts you in the back of the shop, with last season’s styles. Not everyone’s up in arms. But some advocates of body positivity are still fighting for the radical idea that one’s BMI doesn’t need to be trending to be worthy. Prableen Kaur Bhomrah (@PrableenKaurBhomrah) is one of them, and she has thoughts.
{{/usCountry}}“We’re in an age when we are caught between hyper-curation and desperate honesty; we are craving realness but are addicted to perfection,” says Bhomrah. She has over 600K followers on Instagram and initially created content simply to share bits of her life, but very quickly realised how many people were struggling with the same insecurities as she was. “Body positivity became part of my content naturally. I was speaking to my younger self, the girl who constantly felt ‘not enough’. And over time, I was able to create a safe space where I could have honest conversations about self-worth, body image, and the pressure to look a certain way online,” she says.
Her posts show that confidence and beauty aren’t size-dependent. But Bhomrah has noticed a definite downswing in how people view them. Her followers say they support inclusivity, but the algorithm often rewards the opposite. “There’s more conversation, but also more pressure, subtle comparison, and a quiet return of the ‘perfect body’ narrative,” she says.
And it’s exhausting to keep up the fight, when posts are literally tagged #Thinspo and when weightloss content is masquerading as “clean eating” and “girl dinner”. It hits younger people harder – they weren’t around for the first wave of skinny fashion, when protruding hip bones, heroin chic and hollow cheekbones dominated the ’90s and ’00s. “Young people are more aware and vocal, but also more exposed to trends that shift overnight,” Bhomrah points out. “Socially, it excludes people who don’t fit the trend. Culturally, it pushes us backward into a world where thinness is seen as moral superiority.”
Even Lizzo, large, loud and loving it, is calling out the shift. In a recent Substack essay titled ‘Why is everybody losing weight and what do we do?’, she pointed out that the Ozempic boom is quietly erasing plus-size representation from fashion and media. She noted that because of this shift, “all of our big girls are not-so-big anymore”.
For some trend-watchers, the new mark of rebellion is to call out an old double standard: “Is it fashion, or are they just skinny?”. It lays bare what we consider stylish, and how quickly we dismiss what doesn’t fit the biased definition. “Fashion brands are also pulling back on inclusivity, it overall reinforces the idea that visibility is conditional, and that your worthiness depends on your size,” says Bhomrah.
For the moment, some hope remains. “The loud colourful campaigns may have slowed down, but the core idea that all bodies deserve respect is still alive. What survived the backlash is the shift in language. People are now talking about body neutrality and self-acceptance. It’s less performative and more personal,” she says. “A healthier internet would normalise diversity, slow down comparison, and make room for real conversations instead of trends. I want people to walk into the next year remembering one thing: Your body is not a trend. It deserves care, not critique. Confidence isn’t a filter. It’s a practice you build every day.”