Ugly men, millennials, & Pilates: Your 2024 top reads
This year's best of Body Type.
It’s been a fabulous year at Body Type: There are nearly 5,000 more subscribers here than in January! Love ya, so glad you’re with us. To close out the year, here are the most popular 2024 Body Type posts, plus a selection of my favorite posts ever.
Most of what I write in Body Type is free, and I’ll always have free content here. As this newsletter grows, though, I’ve been given the opportunity to work on other things (see below + more coming soon) and am being increasingly thoughtful about what I offer and the value of a paid subscription. Expect a post in early 2025 outlining what free vs. paid subscribers get, and take advantage of this special thank-you discount:
Some of my other work and appearances this year:
Why group fitness classes are the best way to make friends as an adult, The Atlantic (free gift link)
These young people invest in fitness. What should you spend on exercise?, The Washington Post
The new era of commenting on people’s bodies, Dazed magazine
How to start strength training, Slate’s “How To!” podcast
Small dick energy (the problem with penis jokes), Unladylike podcast
The most-read Body Type stories of 2024:
I got pissed off about a post written by Virginia Sole-Smith and Sarah Petersen that I can’t believe is still on the internet. They pick apart Hannah Neeleman (Ballerina Farm) in the name of combatting diet culture, but end up displaying utterly shocking misogyny and entirely overcorrecting for the harms of said culture.
“A millennial woman I know recently told me she wants to lose some body fat leading up to her wedding, and said she hated herself for wanting that. That kind of statement — one I hear often, when women confess such feelings to me as if they’ve committed homicide — evinces the millennial body image curse: We are disappointed in ourselves for not being thin but are also disappointed in ourselves for wanting to be.”
People are increasingly so overexposed to Instagram face and carefully curated “perfection” that they don’t know what real people look like anymore. Look at what just happened with Sydney Sweeney, as
writes here.
“While women in particular are unquestionably held to higher standards and norms around beauty and have historically suffered more under them, you can’t look at the pain in Donald Sutherland’s eyes and tell me that men in general are necessarily less bothered by being deemed unattractive.”
And finally, the most-shared, most-read, and most-commented upon Body Type post ever:
There are numerous commercial, social, and lifestyle aspects that have developed around Pilates that have potentially damaging implications for women’s ideas of what exercise is for and what it can do for them. I examine that and why “Muscle Mommy vs. Pilates Princess” makes me want to walk into the ocean.
Some of my personal favorite non-2024 posts:
Most social media content about eating disorders in men isn't helpful. Here’s what could be.
On manic preoccupations, beauty as self-worth, and raising children in an appearance-obsessed world.
A story about hating exercise, then loving exercise, and what comes in between.
We shouldn't always worry about worrying about dropping a few pounds.
And the first Body Type post ever, from Nov. 28, 2021. It dives into the binge eating struggle that eventually compelled me to start writing about bodies in the first place.
Have a great holiday and new year. I can’t wait to continue writing for you, talking to you, and thinking about all things body image and body culture. ❤️
I've really enjoyed your writing this year, Mikala. I'm looking forward to reading lots more in 2025! 💕
Loved all of these and just reread the Pilates one. Have you ever touched on the bizarre marketing of The Class? I still have no idea what the very small, very toned women who attend those classes do. And the marketing is so out in left field