"I used it too: As my favorite America's Next Top Model contestants posed in themed photo shoots for charitable organizations, I evaluated my front and side profiles in the mirror. I rubbed my hip bones, took pleasure in seeing their hard knobs. I lifted my tank top, sucked in, counting ribs, then flexed, then released. I tried to take a natural breath. Filling my diaphragm with air looked like excess."
"There was something gritty about this show that wasn't present in other reality television. The film was low quality, the lighting shadowy. And of the most interest to me: All the girls competing on "Cycle 3" were hungry looking, except for the one contestant who was not. This contestant was a token-even I knew this at 15. The judges praised her curvy, womanly figure as they parroted proto-body-positive clichés."
An adolescent repeatedly monitored her body in a living-room mirror, taking pleasure in hip bones, counting ribs, sucking in and treating a natural breath as excess. Late-night America's Next Top Model marathons fed an appetite for emaciated aesthetics; the show's low production values and shadowy lighting amplified the hungerful look. Contestants often appeared anorexic or bulimic, while a token curvy contestant received praise but was still eliminated. She equated thinness with seriousness and assumed widespread disordered eating among competitors, internalizing media cues about desirability, control, and identity during the transition out of high school.
Read at Slate Magazine
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