September 24, 2026 – 09:29
The recent wave of public speculation regarding Jenna Ortega’s physical appearance has been profoundly difficult to watch—not because her body is a puzzle that requires an explanation or public solving, but because the response highlights just how acceptable society still finds it to discuss women’s bodies as though they are public property, entirely open to constant observation, unsolicited assessment, and harsh criticism.
For the vast majority of my life, I have been relatively thin. I am well aware that the comments I receive about my own body do not equate to the systemic judgment, barriers, and discrimination experienced daily by people living in larger bodies. Still, this past year served as a stark reminder of just how deeply our culture has normalized treating a person’s weight as public information. After I unintentionally lost a noticeable amount of weight while struggling with Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)—a painful health condition that at times left me unable to comfortably digest more than a single small meal a day—neighbors and casual acquaintances began approaching me with warm congratulations.
Their well-meaning compliments reflected a culture so intensely committed to thinness that any visible weight loss is reflexively interpreted as good news, even when it is a direct physical manifestation of illness and an indicator that I simply was not well. It is hardly any wonder, given this pervasive societal conditioning, that so many women struggle intensely with body image issues and eating disorders. In a candid interview with Jay Shetty earlier this year in July, actress Camila Mendes opened up about her own historical struggles with bulimia, body image, and perfectionism during her time on the hit television series Riverdale. Mendes described the deep confusion she felt when people praised and congratulated her for losing weight during periods when her body was suffering due to her eating disorder. That praise only reinforced the dangerous, distorted idea that she looked her absolute best at her thinnest, actively validating her illness even when she was deeply unwell.
This dynamic speaks to a broader, exhausting reality about what it means to simply exist as a woman in the public eye or in everyday life: no version of our bodies ever seems to truly escape commentary. We are perpetually told that we are too thin, too fat, or conversely, not curvy enough. People always seem to find something to observe, question, praise, criticize, or express worry over, and it is endlessly draining to constantly be on the receiving end of that relentless, inescapable scrutiny.
For Latinas, that unique brand of scrutiny often begins at a very tender age. Many of us grow up embedded within family structures and cultural environments where personal comments about women’s bodies are so thoroughly normalized that we do not always immediately recognize them for what they truly are: blatant boundary violations. One relative pulls you aside to tell you that you have gotten far too skinny, while another is just as quick to point out that you have gained weight. An aunt feels entitled to comment critically on the size of your thighs or the width of your waist. Throughout my own upbringing, my girl cousins frequently told me that I was far too skinny and desperately needed to gain weight. Within my immediate family, one of my enduring nicknames has always been flaca.
While that nickname was almost always deployed as a term of endearment, the underlying reality remained complicated. Losing even a few pounds could suddenly transform into a major source of family-wide concern and interrogation. While casual jokes or remarks about my thinness rarely deeply bothered me on a personal level, and I always knew they fundamentally stemmed from a place of genuine love and familial care, those loving intentions do not erase the underlying, pervasive message being transmitted: my body, and by extension the bodies of women, are readily available for others to evaluate, grade, and discuss.
What makes this kind of scrutiny particularly tangled and complicated for Latinas is the sheerly contradictory nature of the cultural expectations placed upon us. We are explicitly told that we need to be thin—yet cautioned never to be too thin. We are expected to be voluptuous and curvy, but never "fat." We are encouraged to embody a traditional, feminine, and hourglass-like physique, provided that our stomachs remain completely flat and our waists impossibly tiny. We are encouraged to eat and enjoy our food, only to be immediately criticized if we happen to gain a single pound. We are praised and rewarded socially for losing weight, only to be interrogated in the next breath about whether we are eating enough—a persistent question that I personally have heard echoed around me my entire life. In this impossible matrix, no version of our bodies is ever simply allowed to just exist.
That exhausting double standard is precisely why the recent public reaction to Jenna Ortega’s body felt so painfully familiar and predictable. The discourse surrounding her appearance mirrored patterns that women have endured for generations. Fortunately, her younger sister, Aliyah, recently stepped up to defend her, supporting a fan’s message on social media that forcefully reminded the public that Jenna “doesn’t owe anyone an explanation” for her physical appearance or her weight—a statement of fact that should go entirely without saying, yet clearly still needs to be repeated.
The underlying premise is remarkably simple and long overdue: women should never have to stand before the public and explain why their bodies look the way they do at any given moment. And yet, here we are, still needing to state this fundamental truth out loud. A woman’s physical body is not a public question, a community puzzle, or an open invitation that she is ever legally or morally required to answer.
