By Johanna Ferreira
September 24, 2026
The recent wave of public speculation regarding Jenna Ortega’s appearance has been difficult to watch—not because her physical form requires any explanation or defense, but because the intense scrutiny exposes a deeply troubling cultural comfort. It reveals just how acceptable people still find it to discuss women’s bodies as though they are public property, open to endless observation, uninvited assessment, and harsh criticism.
Throughout most of my life, I have been relatively thin, and I recognize that the comments I receive about my body are not equivalent to the systemic judgment, barriers, and discrimination experienced daily by people in larger bodies. Still, this past year served as a stark reminder of how deeply our society has normalized treating weight as public information. After I unintentionally lost weight while struggling with Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)—a painful health condition that at times left me unable to digest more than one meal a day—neighbors and acquaintances began offering enthusiastic congratulations.
Their well-meaning compliments reflected a culture so profoundly committed to thinness that visible weight loss is automatically interpreted as good news, regardless of the underlying reality. They praised the physical result even as it visually demonstrated that I was genuinely unwell and struggling to maintain my health.
It is hardly a wonder that so many women struggle intensely with body image issues and eating disorders in an environment with such distorted values. During a candid interview in July with Jay Shetty, actress Camila Mendes opened up about her own long-standing struggles with bulimia, body image, and perfectionism during her time on Riverdale. Mendes described the acute confusion she felt when people praised and complimented her after she lost weight specifically because of her eating disorder. That praise served to reinforce the dangerous idea that she looked her absolute best at her thinnest, validating a destructive physical state even when she was deeply unhealthy.
That is the persistent reality of navigating the world as a woman: no version of our bodies ever seems to escape unsolicited commentary. We are constantly told we are too thin, too fat, or not curvy enough. People always manage to find something to observe, question, praise, criticize, or express worry about, and it is profoundly exhausting to continually be on the receiving end of that unrelenting scrutiny.
For Latinas, that scrutiny frequently begins at a very young age, woven tightly into the fabric of daily family and social life. Many of us grow up in households and cultural environments where personal comments about women’s bodies are so normalized that we do not always immediately recognize them as boundary violations. One relative pulls you aside to tell you that you have gotten far too skinny, while another is quick to point out that you have gained weight—perhaps a tía casually commenting on the size of your thighs or the width of your waist.
Growing up, my girl cousins frequently told me that I was far too skinny and desperately needed to gain weight. Within my own family, one of my enduring nicknames has always been flaca. It was almost always delivered as a term of endearment, yet losing even a few pounds could suddenly transform into a source of acute anxiety and family-wide concern. While the jokes and remarks about my thinness rarely bothered me personally, and I always understood they typically stemmed from a place of deep affection, loving intentions do not erase the underlying message being communicated: my body is fundamentally available for others to evaluate and critique.
What makes this cultural scrutiny particularly complicated for Latinas is the dizzying array of contradictory expectations placed upon us from all directions. We are told to be thin—but never too thin. We are encouraged to be curvy, but under no circumstances should we be considered “fat.” The cultural archetype demands that we be feminine and voluptuous, provided our stomachs remain entirely flat and our waists impossibly tiny. We are continuously encouraged to eat and enjoy our food, only to be subtly or overtly criticized if that food results in weight gain. We are praised when we manage to lose weight, immediately followed by anxious questions regarding whether we are eating enough—a persistent line of questioning I have heard echoed my entire life. Across every metric, no version of our bodies is simply allowed to exist in peace.
This pervasive double standard is precisely why the recent public reaction to Jenna Ortega’s body felt so painfully familiar. The discourse surrounding her appearance prompted her younger sister, Aliyah, to step forward and publicly support a fan’s message. The statement served as a necessary reminder to the public that Jenna “doesn’t owe anyone an explanation” for her physical appearance, a boundary she is entirely entitled to maintain.
The underlying principle is remarkably simple: women should never have to explain why their bodies look the way they do, whether that appearance is the result of genetics, stress, lifestyle, or private health struggles. And yet, looking across society today, it is disheartening that we still find ourselves needing to articulate this basic truth. A woman’s body is not a public question that she is required to answer.
