FROM THE EDITOR

Diets. I remember some crazy ones. The soup diet. The white food diet. The launch of SlimFast (basically a drink for breakfast and lunch) – there was even a crazy theory that if you left a glass of SlimFast sitting for long enough, maggots would emerge from within. “That’s how it works,” we screamed. “The maggots eat through your fat!”

It was the early 90s and skinny was all-the-way in. You couldn’t be skinny enough. I was in boarding school and it was easy for us boarders to control our food because we weren’t going home in the evenings. If you didn’t want to eat, or if you wanted to purge your dinner, there was nothing stopping you – not during the week, anyway. The thinnest girls were the ones you looked up to. Even the pale, sickly, anorexic girl who ran to the toilet after every meal, exercised obsessively, and seemed to develop a layer of fine downy hair on her arms and legs, was on a pedestal. We knew she was a bit too thin, sure, but didn’t she wear those Levi’s well! Weeks later, she disappeared from school. Extended sick leave, we were told. It makes me cringe looking back, that collective delusion about what discerned an unwell person from a healthy one. Brainwashing. Naivety.

Fast forward 25 years and my young nieces are full of body confidence – they don’t strive for the skinny look, rather they eat well, treat themselves, flaunt their curves and hips in flattering clothes. There’s been a revolution – a slow one – but it’s tangible and it’s a relief. Our cover story looks at the demise of the diet and the rise of the “wellness” lifestyle on page 8.