By Johanna Ferreira
September 24, 2026
The recent wave of public speculation surrounding Jenna Ortega’s physical appearance has been difficult to watch. The issue is not merely that a young public figure’s body is being scrutinized, but rather that the response highlights how culturally acceptable it remains to discuss women’s bodies as though they are public property—open to constant observation, unsolicited assessment, and harsh public criticism.
Throughout my life, I have been relatively thin, and I am well aware that the comments I receive about my body do not equate to the systemic judgment and discrimination experienced by individuals navigating the world in larger bodies. Still, this past year served as a stark reminder of how deeply ingrained our cultural habit is of treating weight as public information. After I unintentionally lost weight while struggling with Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)—a condition that at times left me unable to comfortably digest more than a single meal a day—neighbors and acquaintances began offering enthusiastic congratulations.
Their well-meaning compliments reflected a culture so fundamentally committed to thinness that visible weight loss is reflexively interpreted as good news, completely independent of whether the individual is actually healthy or struggling physically. It is hardly a wonder that so many women grapple lifelong with fractured body images and severe eating disorders in an environment with such distorted barometers of health and beauty.
This toxic dynamic was recently underscored by actor Camila Mendes. During a July interview with Jay Shetty, Mendes opened up about her past struggles with bulimia, body image, and perfectionism during her time on the television show Riverdale. She described the profound confusion she experienced when people praised her and offered compliments during periods when she was losing weight specifically because of her eating disorder. That praise acted as a dangerous reinforcement, validating the notion that she supposedly looked her best precisely when she was at her thinnest and most unwell.
That, ultimately, is the inescapable reality of moving through the world as a woman: no version of our physical form seems capable of escaping commentary. We are perpetually categorized as either too thin, too fat, or not curvy enough. Society always manages to find something to observe, question, praise, criticize, or express worry about. Living on the receiving end of that relentless scrutiny is profoundly exhausting.
For Latinas, that scrutiny frequently begins at a very young age. Many of us grow up embedded in family dynamics and cultural environments where running commentary on women’s bodies is so deeply normalized that we fail to recognize these interactions as boundary violations. One relative pulls you aside to tell you that you have gotten too skinny, while another is quick to point out that you have gained weight. An aunt feels entitled to comment directly on the shape of your thighs or the width of your waist.
Growing up, my girl cousins frequently told me that I was too thin and desperately needed to gain weight. Within my own family, one of my enduring nicknames has always been flaca. While it was almost always intended as a term of endearment, the underlying reality remained complicated. Losing even a few pounds could suddenly transform a casual descriptor into a source of intense family concern. Jokes about my thinness rarely bothered me on a personal level, and I understood completely that they usually originated from a place of genuine affection. However, loving intentions do not magically erase the underlying message being transmitted: that my body remains available for others to evaluate and critique.
What makes this constant scrutiny particularly complex for Latinas is the web of contradictory expectations we are expected to navigate. We are instructed to be thin—but never too thin. We are told to be curvy, but under no circumstances "fat." We are expected to embody a feminine and voluptuous silhouette, provided our stomachs remain entirely flat and our waists impossibly tiny. We are encouraged to eat heartily during family gatherings, only to be subtly criticized if those meals result in weight gain. We are praised when we lose weight, immediately followed by anxious inquiries about whether we are eating enough—a contradictory question I have heard echoed around me my entire life. Across all these shifting standards, no version of our bodies is ever simply allowed to exist.
This pervasive background noise is precisely why the recent public reaction to Jenna Ortega’s body felt so painfully familiar. The discourse surrounding her appearance prompted a necessary pushback, notably from her younger sister, Aliyah. Aliyah recently threw her support behind a fan’s social media message reminding the public that Jenna does not owe anyone an explanation for her body, her health, or her appearance—a truth that should require no defense, yet clearly does.
The underlying premise is refreshingly simple: women should never have to justify why their physical forms look the way they do. And yet, looking across our cultural landscape, it is disheartening that we still need to articulate this basic boundary. A woman’s body is not a public question that she is ever required to answer.
