By Johanna Ferreira
September 24, 2026
The recent wave of public speculation concerning Jenna Ortega’s physical appearance has been difficult to watch—not because her body requires any public explanation, but because the response highlights just how acceptable society still finds it to discuss women’s bodies as though they are public property. These ongoing discussions treat female anatomy as an open forum, entirely available for observation, assessment, and unsolicited criticism.
Having spent most of my life relatively thin, I am well aware that the comments I receive about my body do not equate to the systemic judgment and discrimination experienced by people in larger bodies. Still, this past year served as a stark reminder of how deeply we have normalized treating an individual’s 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 digest more than one meal a day—neighbors and acquaintances began congratulating me. Their enthusiastic compliments reflected a culture so intensely committed to thinness that visible weight loss was automatically interpreted as good news, completely disregarding the reality that I was unwell.
This warped societal framework helps explain why so many women struggle intensely with body image and eating disorders. During a July interview with Jay Shetty, actress Camila Mendes opened up about her past struggles with bulimia, body image, and perfectionism during her time on Riverdale. She described how receiving praise and compliments when she lost weight—driven entirely by her eating disorder—created deep confusion. That misplaced reinforcement reinforced the harmful idea that she supposedly looked her best at her thinnest, even when her physical and mental health were severely compromised.
That is the relentless reality of navigating the world as a woman: no version of our physical form seems to escape commentary. We are constantly told we are either too thin, too fat, or not curvy enough. People always manage to find something to observe, question, praise, criticize, or express worry over, and living on the receiving end of that constant scrutiny is exhausting.
For Latinas, that scrutiny frequently begins at a very young age. Many of us grow up within families and cultural environments where comments about women’s bodies are so deeply normalized that we do not always recognize them as violations of personal boundaries. One relative might casually tell you that you have gotten too skinny, while another is quick to point out that you have gained weight, with tías routinely offering commentary on the size of your thighs or waist. Growing up, my girl cousins often told me I was too skinny and needed to gain weight. In my own family, one of my enduring nicknames has always been flaca. It was usually delivered as a term of endearment, yet losing even a few pounds could suddenly transform into a source of anxiety and concern for those around me. While jokes and remarks about my thinness rarely bothered me on a personal level, and I understood they often stemmed from a place of love, those loving intentions do not erase the underlying message: my body was, and remains, available for others to evaluate.
What makes this scrutiny particularly complicated for Latinas is the web of contradictory expectations placed upon us. We are told to be thin—but not too thin. We are expected to be curvy, but never "fat." Society demands that we remain feminine and voluptuous, provided our stomachs are perfectly flat and our waists are tiny. We are encouraged to eat, and then criticized the moment we gain weight. We are praised for losing weight, only to be immediately questioned about whether we are eating enough—a persistent line of questioning I have heard echoing around me my entire life. No version of our bodies is simply allowed to exist.
This cultural backdrop is precisely why the recent reaction to Jenna Ortega’s body felt so painfully familiar. The discourse reached a point where her younger sister, Aliyah, felt compelled to step in and support a fan’s message reminding the public that Jenna “doesn’t owe anyone an explanation” for her body—a statement that is fundamentally true. The underlying principle is simple: women should never have to explain why their bodies look the way they do. And yet, here we are in 2026, still needing to state the obvious. A woman’s body is not a public question that she is required to answer.
