Celebrating Strength: Why “Strong, Not Skinny” Matters More Than Ever

Over the past few months, I’ve become increasingly aware of a shift happening around us. It’s not just in headlines or celebrity images—it’s in real women, in everyday settings: weight loss drugs being used off-label, rapid body changes, and a growing resurgence of the ultra-thin ideal many of us hoped we’d left firmly in the past.

Let me be clear: these medications absolutely have an important place in healthcare. For some people, they can be life-changing tools when combined with clinical support, nutrition, and long-term behaviour change.

But for others, they are becoming a quick fix—a shortcut to shrinking, a way to “get smaller” fast, without regard for what is actually being lost in the process.

And that is what worries me.

When the Goal Becomes Skinniness, Strength Is the First Casualty

The use of weight loss drugs outside medical guidance can cause weight to drop quickly—but the weight lost isn’t just fat. It’s often muscle mass, and in many cases, bone density too.

For women—especially women over 40, perimenopausal, postmenopausal, or recovering from cancer treatment—this is critical.

Muscle and bone are not optional.

They are our armour. Our engine. Our independence.

They protect us from frailty, falls, fractures, metabolic decline, and the rapid loss of function that so many women begin to experience long before they should.

And we’re losing that message again.

The Return of the Skinny Ideal—and Why It’s So Harmful

Images of dramatically shrinking bodies are being praised. Online conversations are

increasingly framed around thinness as success. We’re drifting back toward a narrow, unattainable ideal that many of us fought hard to unlearn.

The danger isn’t just the drugs themselves (though there is still so much we don’t know about long-term effects).

It’s what this shift tells women:

• that being smaller is automatically better

• that strength doesn’t matter

• that muscle is something to be “toned” away

• that thinness equals health

• that you must constantly manage and reduce yourself to be acceptable

This messaging is not only unhelpful—it’s harmful. It encourages behaviours that directly undermine a woman’s long-term health and quality of life.

Why Muscle Matters (More Than Ever)

Women naturally lose muscle mass as we age. Hormonal changes accelerate this process:

• Perimenopause: muscle loss speeds up

• Menopause: bone density declines more rapidly

• Post-menopause: muscle repair becomes less efficient

Add rapid drug-induced weight loss—and it’s like pressing fast-forward on all of that.

Muscle is metabolic, protective, stabilising, hormonally active, and essential for:

• balancing blood sugar

• maintaining a healthy metabolism

• supporting joints

• preventing injury

• keeping us mobile, capable, and independent

• thriving after cancer treatment, not just surviving

This is the foundation of long-term health for women. Not thinness. Strength.

We Need to Celebrate Strength Again

The message that helped so many women reclaim confidence in their bodies over the past decade—strong, not skinny—wasn’t just a fitness trend. It was a cultural corrective.

A shift toward valuing:

• what our bodies can do, not just how they look

• resilience over restriction

• capability over shrinking

• health over aesthetics

• muscle over fragility

We need that message back, now more than ever.

Strength Is Not Just a Physical Attribute

Strength is also:

• choosing fuelling over fasting

• prioritising movement that builds you rather than breaks you

• resisting pressure to shrink into a version of yourself that fits a trend

• valuing your body’s function more than its outline

• making decisions that invest in your future self

For women recovering from cancer treatment, rebuilding strength isn’t optional—it’s central to healing.

For women entering their 40s and 50s, strength is the key to longevity.

For all women, strength offers freedom: freedom to move, to live, to lift, to carry, to age well.

Let’s Reframe the Conversation - Think Strong, Not Skinny

Instead of asking:

“How quickly can you lose weight?”

Let’s ask:“How strong can you become?”

Instead of:“How small can you be?”

Let’s ask:“How well can you live?”

Instead of celebrating shrinking bodies, let’s celebrate capable ones.

Because strong women live longer, fuller, healthier lives.

And that is something worth reinforcing, modelling, and protecting.