Body problems and soul solutions
FIELD NOTES
By Rev. Allie McDougall
THE TRENDS of fashion and culture, as they relate to bodies and beauty, are an ever-swinging pendulum between aesthetic decadence and iconoclastic restriction.
A cursory examination of the red carpets and runways of 2026 have indicated that the Western media circus is once again prioritizing restriction. About 10 years ago, curves and softness were all the rage, but now it’s clavicles and hollowed out cheekbones as far as the eye can see.
Harsh plastic surgery that eliminates creases, folds, and fat from faces and raises eyebrows further and further up the face are popular among women and men alike. Easy access to weight loss drugs and GLP-1s means that ordinarily thin women are becoming skeletal and emaciated. The ultra-famous popstar Ariana Grande, reminiscent of Karen Carpenter in her final days before succumbing to anorexia-related cardiac illness, has cancelled her tour to take time out of the spotlight. Natural aging has fallen out of style (if it ever was in) and been replaced with uncanny youthfulness and frozen, same-y, expressionless faces.
While celebrity beauty culture has always trended on the side of the unnatural, these people ultimately dictate what becomes trendy and popular with the masses. There is a sort of trickle-down economy of beauty that has emerged in the social media era: beginning with taste-making celebrities, democratized and made accessible through TikTok and Instagram influencers, and incorporated into the beauty and lifestyle habits of young consumers.
The term economy is apt to describe this exchange as cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies that pay top dollar for celebrities and low-level influencers to shill their products. “Get ready with me” tutorial videos populate social media feeds, highlighting the correct beauty treatments and products that hold the key to beauty. Private cosmetic day surgery clinics have begun popping up in cities of varying sizes. Ozempic can be legally purchased online with little to no medical consultation.
Although beauty trends overwhelmingly impact young women, the current turn towards punishing control of the flesh is also affecting young men. If you are familiar with the term “looksmaxxing”, you would know that there is now an entire corner of the internet committed to achieving the perfect physical form through sublimation and extreme restriction. This trend has emerged from the darker recesses of the internet, the product of incels (involuntary celibate young men) who feel that perfection is what it takes to find a desirable woman. I discourage the reader from conducting any further research on this movement, lest you can stomach wading into a subculture rife with misogyny and sexual delusion.
Obsession with physical perfection, aesthetic uniformity, extreme weight loss, and evading aging is far from new, but the ubiquity of these messages paired with the accessibility of the products and services required to achieve the desired results are making themselves available to the next generation.
This is not a new problem for the Church and to prepare a compassionate Christian rebuttal, we needn’t look further than our own history. The punishment and control of physical bodies in the secular 21st century is really not all that different from the ascetic Gnosticism that battled with the core of the true Church in its first few centuries. Instead of sublimating the body to attain perfect divine understanding, people are employing the same methods to achieve high value in the eyes of others, particularly as viable sexual partners or objects of admiration. Secular ascetism is not about holiness, it is about consumption of the self to earn the love and attention of others.
The answer for orthodox Christianity has been to affirm the goodness of the body as a creation that bears God’s image, not a thing to be overcome. The created world matters to God, who lovingly crafted it and called it good. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ depends on His enfleshment in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is of utmost importance in the plan of salvation that Jesus, as fully man and fully God, walked, talked, ate, drank, and slept in the body He inhabited. The same body which was tortured, died, was resurrected, and is currently alive and dwells at the right hand of God in heaven.
Our bodies deserve care and celebration, rather than restriction and reinvention. All bodies have inherent value, regardless of their appearance or ability, and that will be true no matter what cultural trends dictate. Affirmation of the goodness of the body and its inherent value is a necessary component of Christian public witness, as the consequences of current trends begin to affect broader swathes of the populace and our youth feel the pressure to participate in punishing aesthetic rituals.
We must be particularly mindful of this as the discussion begins to shift from the physical realm to the transhuman, physically transcendent allure of virtual reality and AI are touted by Big Tech as humanity’s true destination. We know our actual destination, which is with God in His kingdom, our bodies and souls forever united with the same Jesus Christ who shares in our humanity so that we may one day share in His divinity.
Rev. Allie McDougall is Rector of St. Mary's Walkerville.