Jonna Carter: Body image in the pandemic age

I read an essay by Kate Cohen titled, "I stopped caring about my body image in 2020. I’ll miss that gift." It begins, "Every January, I choose between two New Year’s resolutions: to get thinner or to stop caring about being thin. I know that not caring is the better goal. Still, every year I choose 'thinner.'" Kate, you are hardly alone. This is my perennial resolution, and no more so than this year. After the past year of endless crises, it's time to wrap my head around my superficial desire to be thinner and look younger.

As women, having grown up in a culture that valued our appearance over all else, we've been conditioned to harbor unrealistic physical aspirations, but I more so than many. Few grew up in a household with a women's magazine editor at the helm and coffee tables laden with product. Seventeen magazine was my first love, and later Vogue and Elle. It was impossible to be beautiful enough, sexy enough, sophisticated enough. I didn't realize at the time how ridiculously unrealistic this all was.