Adele nearly broke the internet after posting a photo of herself celebrating her 32nd birthday. Though she did not comment about it herself, the photo showed what some have deemed as her "incredible" weight loss transformation. After googling "Adele weight loss," the rest of the searches are as follows: "surgery," "transformation," "plan," and "pills." In addition, another search that appears is "Adele weight loss memes." If you have not already seen them, there are a series of memes flooding the internet that contain side by side photos of Adele next to various foods like pizza, ice cream, and fried chicken. One of these captions reads, "skinny Adele or ice cream?"
If you're not seeing anything problematic about this, it's time to re-evaluate.
It goes without saying that we do not know the reasons or motivations behind Adele's weight loss. What we do know is that the singer has yet to comment on it herself. We do not see her glorifying what has been called the "glow up she deserves" on social media, and that truly makes me question what we feel gives us the right to glorify it.
Whether it was for health reasons or personal reasons, this idolization of the "skinny" Adele is being glorified for all the wrong reasons.
People are creating memes that are promoting restriction and unhealthy eating behaviors. The internet truly has the nerve to make women question whether or not they should eat a piece of pizza or fried chicken for fear that, if they do, they will not achieve a body like Adele's.
Body positivity comes in all shapes and forms, and with all of the progress that our society has made in terms of self-love and acceptance of our bodies, it is beyond disappointing to see memes like this surfacing on the internet. They go against all of the work that every one of us has put into learning to love ourselves. They completely overlook normalized eating and may trigger responses that result in disordered eating patterns. It is alarming to find that, when we now search for Adele on the internet, we are flooded with responses of dieting and weight loss pills. She is a talented, strong woman and she always has been. It is truly sad that these are the things that we are now associating her with instead of her established career in music.
