From Skinny to Strong to Slim: How the “Ideal” Female Body Keeps Changing

Hey loves,

Once upon a time, the ideal body was Michelle Lewin’s or Jen Selter’s, during the early days of Instagram. These women’s fit and toned bodies were the pinnacle of the ideal female body.

Having sculpted arms or abs was ideal as long as it was accompanied by a perfect butt. “Strong is the new skinny“ was the slogan of the time and every girl was trying to get stronger with pull ups and push ups.

Soon after this trend was the curvy Kardashian-type of body so you can tell how this progression and shift towards and away from trends worked.

When Did Our Bodies Become Trends?

One decade tells women to be as thin as possible. Another celebrates curves. Then suddenly everyone wants visible abs, defined shoulders and glutes. Now we’re seeing another movement toward slimmer, more understated physiques.

If the “perfect body” keeps changing, why are women expected to keep changing with it?

I’ve been in the fitness world long enough to watch what women want from their bodies change dramatically and social media has only accelerated it.

This article is an exploration of the shift from skinny, curvy strong and slim/lean, and what we can learn from that cycle.

The Skinny Era: When Taking Up Less Space Was the Goal

Introducing the late 1990s and 2000s and their obsession with extreme thinness.

Hugely influential at the time were celebrity culture, fashion magazines, low-rise jeans, diet culture and the messaging women received around food.

Fitness reflected the aesthetic: calorie-burning workouts, endless cardio, tiny dumbbells and exercise marketed primarily as a way to become smaller.

Women weren’t necessarily being encouraged to become fitter, they were being encouraged to weigh less.

Dissatisfaction with this ideal eventually helped create a completely different one.

The Curvy Era: Suddenly, Bigger Became Better (But Only in Certain Places)

Let us fast forward into the 2010s.

There came the rise of the hourglass ideal: small waist, larger hips and glutes.

Instagram fitness culture explodes. Squats and glute workouts become enormously popular. “Slim thick” enters mainstream beauty culture.

Women were now allowed and even encouraged to be bigger, but only in very specific places.

A tiny waist was still expected alongside disproportionately developed curves.

Genetics, cosmetic procedures, posing, editing and social media could make this physique seem far more universally attainable than it actually was.

The Brazilian butt lift (BBL) rose in popularity and many people sported a fake butt alongside editing and training.

Can the average Joe achieve a BBL level of butt or will they at their absolute best achieve a great set of glutes? Which one is more realistic?

Strong Became the New Skinny

The positive side of the strength-training movement is that more women started lifting weights.

Fitness messaging shifted from:

“How little can I weigh?”

to:

“How much can I lift?”

Women began celebrating muscle, athleticism and performance.

Then came the rise of female strength influencers, CrossFit, bodybuilding, powerlifting and mainstream resistance training.

This was genuinely empowering but another aesthetic standard slowly emerged.

Being “strong” sometimes became another appearance requirement: defined abs, round glutes, sculpted legs, toned arms, low body fat.

Did we actually escape body standards or did we just replace one ideal with another?

The Current Shift: Is Slim Coming Back?

The most recent movement is toward leaner, softer and less muscular aesthetics across fashion, celebrity culture and social media.

Trends such as Pilates, walking, low-impact training and the desire for a “long and lean” appearance are now in.

Cultural conversation around GLP-1 medications has intersected with changing attitudes toward weight and thinness without reducing the entire shift to medication.

The paradigm came from growing your glutes in 2016 to getting strong in the early 2020’s. Now it’s being lean, Pilates and looking effortless.

None of those activities are inherently problematic. The problem begins when one specific body shape gets marketed as the body every woman should pursue.

TikTok and Instagram Have Put Body Trends on Fast-Forward

Previously, beauty standards might dominate for years.

Now microtrends can appear within months.

The following bodies have been in:

• “Pilates body”
• “Gym girl”
• “Slim thick”
• “Strong girl”
• “That girl”
• “Ballet body”

Algorithms repeatedly expose women to similar physiques, creating the illusion that everyone suddenly looks that way.

Posing, lighting, filters, editing, genetics and selective posting distort our understanding of what normal bodies look like.

We aren’t comparing ourselves with the average woman anymore. We’re comparing ourselves with an algorithmically selected highlight reel.

The Genetics Conversation Fitness Culture Avoids

Training can dramatically change the body but it cannot completely redesign someone’s skeleton or genetics.

These factors come into play:

• Pelvis and rib-cage structure
• Limb proportions
• Natural fat distribution
• Muscle insertions
• Where an individual tends to gain and lose fat

Two women can follow the same workout and nutrition plan and still develop very different physiques.

A fitness program can develop your body. It cannot turn your body into somebody else’s body.

The Mental Cost of Chasing a Moving Target

Women are constantly chasing different bodily extremes and it’s getting exhausting! We just want to happily inhabit our bodies instead of molding it 360 every time a new trend comes.

Someone finally builds the curves she was told were desirable and suddenly thinness returns.

Someone loses weight and then muscle becomes fashionable.

Someone builds muscle and suddenly she worries she’s “too bulky.”

This creates an impossible cycle of never feeling finished.

From body checking, comparison, constantly changing goals and treating the body like a never-ending renovation project, we, as women, are made to struggle with our physical appearance.

What Should We Actually Be Training For?

Why don’t we build goals around the following?

Strength. Energy. Mobility. Confidence. Health. Longevity. Performance.

Appearance goals don’t have to be forbidden. Wanting bigger glutes, more definition or a smaller waist doesn’t automatically make someone superficial.

The difference is recognizing:

“This is something I want” versus “This is what I’m supposed to look like.”

You want to build a physique that you genuinely enjoy rather than constantly responding to social-media trends.

The “ideal” female physique will change again.

Maybe ultra-athletic bodies return. Maybe curves return. Maybe something completely different becomes fashionable.

That’s exactly why attaching your self-worth to whichever body happens to be trending is such a losing game.

Trends are supposed to change. Your body doesn’t have to change every time they do.

Train because you want to become stronger, healthier and more confident not because an algorithm decided your body type went out of style.

I hope that you enjoyed this blog post on From Skinny to Strong to Slim: How the “Ideal” Female Body Keeps Changing, please let me know what you thought about it in the comments section below!