Oh sweeties no, it was awful. Callista Flockhart and Kate Moss were held up as the feminine ideal. "Heroin chic" was in. I couldn't buy jeans in most stores once I got over a size 10, which is to say in 8th grade. Believe it or not, things are MUCH better now. https://twitter.com/abby4thepeople/status/1386149881081827330

We didn't have filters, but what we had were magazines with models airbrushed beyond recognition. I would say the internet/social media has helped make things *better,* because we see a much wider variety of body shapes rather than the single one prized by Hollywood

Like...I cannot emphasize this enough. No. The 90s was maybe the single worst time to be a fat kid, at least in America. Even if you go back and look at the shows and ads from earlier decades people have more curve to them

The 90s was something of a peak of consumerism, and the pressure to conform was immense. Like, when an Abercrombie and Fitch opened in my hometown we (the punks/goths/theatre kids who hadn't yet come out lol) would go spit at the window because we were so over it

Yes! We literally didn't know. We had no idea how doctored those images were, at least as kids. And *everything* was about weight loss. The advertising and lectures were constant and strident. https://twitter.com/bexone/status/1386789843741515779?s=20

We were weighed at school. We were sent to Weight Watchers and given Slim-Fast (I think I first tried Slim-Fast at age 12, of my own accord, which would've been 1995. My BFF started dieting at about 8). And I wasn't even fat then! I just wasn't *thin.*

I don't want to get too into the weeds here but...Jesus. No. Things aren't great now but they were fucking awful then, and the fat activism and body positivity we see now are a direct reaction to the fatphobic excesses of that time period

Holy shit yes. The low rise jeans/short tops combo was the bane of my existence for at least a decade. https://twitter.com/higglety1/status/1386791928746979328?s=20

The late 90s-early 2000s was this bizarre time in fashion when the most desirable thing to have as a woman/girl was a bare lower torso that was as smooth and unmarked as a dolphin. Plus, somehow, big tits (but not too big), but no hips

No butt either. I'm so glad butts are back in fashion now but what a time that was to live through as a potato shaped child with a fat ass and B cups. I wore a truly bizarre combination of peasant dresses and men's carpenter jeans and vintage Hawaiian shirts to make it through