Virgie Tovar's Newsletter

Body Image Check-in № 95

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 18:17:18 GMT

Did you read it?

No matter how you answered, kudos for taking the time to notice how you feel. If you answered: “I’m struggling + I need tools,” take 1 minute to ask yourself what is one tool - the easiest tool - you could access today? Next question…

Having words ready is half the battle. Have a phrase you can reach for before the inner critic finishes its sentence. Ready for your last check-in question?

Having a small, easy action item teaches you to take care of yourself and your body image. Good work!

Body Image Lesson № 95: Food-Based Memory Is Intergenerational

Paid subscribers get the full lesson below, plus all 90+ lessons in the archive.

This week I attended a lecture given by award-winning plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery about her new book, When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History and America’s Black Botanical Legacy. She shares many incredible stories in this book, but the one that really made me stop and think was this one:

Body Image Check-in № 94

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 18:00:39 GMT

Did you read it?

Having words ready is half the battle. Have a phrase you can reach for before the inner critic finishes its sentence. Ready for your last check-in question?

Having a small, easy action item teaches you to take care of yourself and your body image. Good work!

Body Image Lesson № 94: Silence About Food & Bodies Is Golden

Paid subscribers get the full lesson below, plus all 90+ lessons in the archive.

One of the most powerful things we can do for the young people in our lives is also one of the easiest: stop talking about food and bodies.

We Can't End Weight Stigma & Keep Intentional Weight-Loss

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 15:03:31 GMT

Welcome to Issue 22 of VOLUMINATI, a monthly essay series on bodies and culture. Scroll down to listen to this essay.

What we’ll cover in this 8-part essay:

“Weight stigma is wrong” and “weight-loss is good” can’t be true at the same time.
Intentional weight-loss is covert weight stigma, which makes it harder to critique but just as harmful long-term as overt weight stigma.
Question: “But surely there’s a slow, sensible way to lose weight?”
Question: “There are just some people who need to lose weight for health reasons, right?”
Question: “There must be some reason why doctors keep prescribing weight-loss, though?”
The moral calculus of intentional weight-loss is abhorrent. Gambling with people’s health just because they’re fat is a stigmatizing act.
Promoting intentional weight-loss is a form of victim-blaming.
Let’s bravely redefine what ending weight stigma means.

1. There is no version of our culture where both “weight stigma is wrong” and “weight-loss is good” can be true at the same time.

In recent years, cultural norms have shifted dramatically. Many people now recognize that mocking, discriminating against, or shaming people for their body size is harmful and wrong. When the conversation turns to intentional weight-loss, however, that sharp clarity often dissolves because the weight-loss industry has assured us that we can work toward ending weight stigma and promoting weight-loss at the same time.

In fact, these things are unreconcilable.

2. Intentional weight-loss is covert weight stigma, which makes it harder to critique but is just as harmful long-term as overt weight stigma.

Mocking, discriminating against and shaming people for being in a larger body are all forms of overt weight stigma. Promoting intentional weight-loss, on the other hand, is an example of covert weight stigma.

Covert weight stigma can often sound like motivation, pity, double standards, compassion, or hope.
It can sound like using weight-loss as a synonym for health.
It can look like subconsciously believing that we should end weight stigma as long as certain conditions are met, e.g. all people in larger bodies are visibly doing certain behaviors with food or movement.
It may even be embedded within the feminist language of body autonomy and choice.

That’s why it can feel stickier and harder to name and critique.

Let’s pull back the curtain and lay out the logic of intentional weight-loss so you can see the clear weight stigma at its core:

In order for intentional weight-loss to make sense as a universal good, there has to be something universally and inherently wrong with fat bodies and something universally and inherently right with thin/ner bodies. That premise is factually incorrect, and it relies entirely on weight stigma. Weight-loss is, by definition, a project of bodily correction. It cannot be undertaken without first accepting that the body in question is wrong, undesirable, or ill. However gently framed, weight-loss promotion delivers the same underlying message: something is wrong with the fat body.

Additionally, both overt and covert weight stigma cause a harmful stress response that deteriorates health over time.

With overt stigma, the brain triggers the release of stress hormones like adrenaline, causing blood pressure and blood sugar levels to rise. With covert stigma, the stress response isn’t as marked, but it lasts longer. Over time, both forms of stress lead to cells aging more rapidly and suppressed immune system function.

Make no mistake that suggesting and undertaking weight-loss necessarily requires exposure to weight stigma and the accompanying stress response.

3. “But surely there’s a slow, sensible way to lose weight?”

Right now, people think of intentional weight-loss as a neutral, health-promoting behavior that often succeeds. That simply isn’t true.

Body Image Check-in № 93

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 18:02:31 GMT

Having words ready is half the battle. Have a phrase you can reach for before the inner critic finishes its sentence. Ready for your last check-in question?

Having a small, easy action item teaches you to take care of yourself and your body image. Good work!

Body Image Lesson № 93: False Claims Have Long Been the Marketing Strategy of Choice for the Weight-Loss Industry

Paid subscribers get the full lesson below, plus all 90+ lessons in the archive: the research, the scripts, and the practices from every single Sunday.

"We have known for some time now that there is a serious problem with weight-loss product advertising. This report demonstrates the extent of that problem. Reputable marketers continue to take care to avoid false and misleading claims, but it appears that too many unscrupulous marketers are making false claims promising dramatic and effortless weight loss to sell their products. It is not fair to consumers; it is not fair to legitimate businesses, it is illegal, and it will not be tolerated."

- FTC Chairman Timothy J. Muris in an FTC report on false claims and misrepresentation in weight-loss ads published in 2002

Body Image Check-in № 92

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 18:00:49 GMT

The Virgie Tovar Body Liberator Scholarship for Doulas recognizes an applicant who is fiercely committed to breaking down the systems of oppression around the size of bodies: including, but not limited to weight stigma, fatphobia, eating disorders, movement, body image etc.

The scholarship is valued at $2779 USD. Deadline August 15.

Learn More & Apply

Having words ready is half the battle. Have a phrase you can reach for before the inner critic finishes its sentence. Ready for your last check-in question?

Having a small, easy action item teaches you to take care of yourself and your body image. Good work!

Body Image Lesson № 92: Here’s What A 1998 “Swimsuit Study” Taught Us

Paid subscribers get the full lesson below, plus all 90+ lessons in the archive: the research, the scripts, and the practices from every single Sunday.

College students were asked to take a math test wearing either a sweater or a swimsuit. Guess what wearing a bathing suit did to women’s scores?

Body Image Check-in № 91

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 18:00:34 GMT

Having words ready is half the battle. Have a phrase you can reach for before the inner critic finishes its sentence. Ready for your last check-in question?

Having a small, easy action item teaches you to take care of yourself and your body image. Good work!

Body Image Lesson № 91: “Flattering” Is A 4-Letter Word.

Paid subscribers get the full lesson below, plus all 90+ lessons in the archive: the research, the scripts, and the practices from every single Sunday.

“Flattering” doesn’t mean beautiful. It means “this outfit successfully hides the parts of you we’ve agreed are wrong.”

"Hey Friend, Please Respect That I Don't Want To Hear About Your Weight-Loss Journey."

Virgie Tovar — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 15:30:19 GMT

Listen to a free audio preview of this article. Paid subscribers can scroll down to download or stream the full audio for this article.

Body Image Check-in № 90

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 18:01:18 GMT

Having words ready is half the battle. Have a phrase you can reach for before the inner critic finishes its sentence. Ready for your last check-in question?

Having a small, easy action item teaches you to take care of yourself and your body image. Good work!

Body Image Lesson № 90: The Best Change Is Often Not “Visually Verifiable”

Paid subscribers get the full lesson below, plus all 80+ lessons in the archive: the research, the scripts, and the practices from every single Sunday.

The most important shifts don’t show up on a body. They show up in a life.

The Wall Street Journal: GLP-1s Can Create A Runway To Anorexia

Virgie Tovar — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:16:07 GMT

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported on an important phenomenon: people starting GLP-1s and ultimately developing anorexia. It's important to understand how GLP-1 usage can create a runway to anorexia. Below is an easy-to-understand 4-step breakdown. Please note: this article is not medical advice.

Step 1: Pharmacological appetite suppression

GLP-1 medications mimic a gut hormone that regulates blood sugar and satiety. This hormone quiets hunger cues significantly. Some patients report near-total loss of interest in food and/or ongoing waves of nausea. Caloric intake consequently drops. This drop in caloric intake is the mechanism through which GLP-1s cause rapid weight-loss, not the hormone itself.

Body Image Check-in № 89

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 18:00:46 GMT

Having words ready is half the battle. Have a phrase you can reach for before the inner critic finishes its sentence. Ready for your last check-in question?

Having a small, easy action item teaches you to take care of yourself and your body image. Good work!

Body Image Lesson № 89: Shame Doesn’t Always Sound Like Shame

Paid subscribers get the full lesson below, plus all 88+ lessons in the archive: the research, the scripts, and the practices from every single Sunday.

Why I’m Not A Body Neutrality Girlie

Virgie Tovar — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:01:30 GMT

Welcome to the 20th monthly installment of my Substack vertical, VOLUMINATI.

Body neutrality: a mindset that shifts the focus away from how your body looks and toward what it can do and feel. Instead of demanding that you love or hate your physical appearance, it encourages you to view your body as a neutral, functional tool that carries you through life.

I don’t identify with body neutrality.

As an HSP maximalist fat Brown girl with a history of trauma-rama, I feel neutral about literally nuh-thing.

I’ve got strong feelings about the correct way to store gum.

I will reorganize an entire room because a lamp is giving me a bad vibe.

I’ve been known to cry because the light hit a tree in a particularly beautiful way.

My relationship to my body - a deeply personal site of joy, pleasure, lineage, and cultural resistance - was just neh-ver going to be the thing I wasn’t going hard on. If I’m completely honest, neutrality just doesn’t come naturally to me, and it doesn’t land as the emotion I want to have toward my body.

Pride? Yes.

Protection? Yes.

Positivity? Also yes.

Still, I strongly believe there’s a broad spectrum of ways to relate to the body, and I don’t think there’s a universally “correct” one. Diversity is a good thing when it comes to bodies as well as philosophies about bodies. There’s just what works for you, and what doesn’t. That being said, body neutrality just doesn’t resonate with or work for me.

I’m a body love, self-love lady all the way.

Beyond my personal maximalist aesthetic, I think people often misunderstand self-love, hastily labeling it as a manifestation of toxic positivity without understanding its historical origins.

Body love politics originated in fat activism. “I love my body” is a reclamatory, political refrain adopted by people who had been taught to hate their bodies. In this way, fat activism was inspired by other liberation movements - like the Gay Liberation Movement, the Black Is Beautiful Movement and the Disability Justice Movement - who use(d) self-love language and frameworks as acts of collective defiance. Self-love (or body love) wasn't meant to be a demand made on the individuals who claimed it, but an act of protest against the systems that told oppressed people they were ugly and worthless.

Popularized around 2016 by body image coach Anne Poirier, body neutrality arose because the call to love one's body was taken literally (not politically) by both many proponents and critics. That version of self-love understandably felt unachievable and alienating to many. Ironically, however, I think the claim to

How's Your Body Image Doing?

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 18:00:59 GMT

Optional listening:

Checking in weekly with your body image can help you feel less overwhelmed and may even help you spot positive or negative patterns. Let’s do this!

No matter how you answered, kudos for taking the time to notice how you feel. If you answered: “I’m struggling + I need tools,” take 5 or 10 minutes to ask yourself what is one tool - the easiest tool - you could access today? Maybe it’s a nap, some journaling time, smelling something you love, wearing something comfy, baking, or finding a podcast episode that taps into a question or interest you have. Next question…

Having a small, easy action item helps you learn to take care of yourself and your body image. Ready for your last check-in question?

This week, notice if checking in with your body image helped you feel more clear or empowered.

It’s easy to fall into the false belief that body liberation and weight neutrality are just feel-good ideas rather than principles that have a demonstrated history of improving mental and physical health.

That can be easy to forget when the cultural conversation is so focused on the shrinking body as the only legitimate manifestation of health. We are

GLP-1 Truth Serum Pod S2E2: "Marketing Isn't Medicine"

Virgie Tovar — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:01:47 GMT

If you’ve ever wondered why GLP-1 ads seem impossible to ignore or why they can feel emotionally overwhelming even when you’re committed to rejecting diet culture, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I break down seven of the most common psychological tactics used in GLP-1 marketing and explain how these campaigns are designed to shape attention, emotion, and behavior. Understanding these tactics isn’t about blaming yourself for being affected by advertising. It’s about recognizing the strategies at work so you can respond with greater awareness, autonomy, and self-trust.

Related to this episode:

In this episode, I discuss:

Why ubiquity and repetition makes marketing messages feel increasingly true.
How medical language and “lab coat washing” can give marketing claims the appearance of scientific certainty.
How fear is used to create urgency around body size and health.
The role of shame, hope, and emotional vulnerability in weight-loss advertising.
How surveillance-based advertising targets people with histories of dieting, weight stigma, and body dissatisfaction.
Why today’s GLP-1 ads increasingly feature “someone like you” instead of unattainable beauty ideals, and why that shift matters.

This episode is part of my ongoing effort to help listeners understand the psychological architecture of the modern weight-loss industry and to build stronger defenses against messaging that profits from body insecurity and weight stigma.

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, leaving a review, or sharing it with a friend.

Subscribe now

How's Your Body Image Doing?

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 18:00:49 GMT

Optional reading:

Checking in weekly with your body image can help you feel less overwhelmed and may even help you spot positive or negative patterns. Let’s do this!

Having a small, easy action item helps you learn to take care of yourself and your body image. Ready for your last check-in question?

This week, notice if checking in with your body image helped you feel more clear or empowered.

A lot of people want to know if body positivity will make a comeback and when (if?) this weight-loss obsession era will end.

I Made 7 GLP-1 Predictions In July 2025. Here Are The Results After One Year.

Virgie Tovar — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 19:00:54 GMT

In July 2025 I published a post making seven predictions about what I anticipated for the future of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. One year later, I thought it was worth revisiting them.

✅ Prediction #1: More Lawsuits Due to Adverse Effects

The number of lawsuits against GLP-1 companies (like Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly) has grown significantly, expanding from just 55 consolidated cases in early 2024 to more than 4,400 total cases by mid-2026

When I wrote the original piece, news outlets were reporting a few dozen lawsuits against manufacturers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. Today, federal GLP-1 multidistrict litigation involving gastrointestinal injuries now includes thousands of pending cases, and a separate federal multidistrict litigation has been established for vision-loss claims involving non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). Whether the manufacturers ultimately prevail in court is a separate question. What matters for this prediction is that concerns once dismissed as isolated complaints have evolved into one of the largest pharmaceutical litigations currently moving through the federal court system.

✅ Prediction #2: More Emergency Room Visits Due to Adverse Effects

In 2025, researchers published an analysis estimating approximately 24,499 emergency-room visits attributable to semaglutide adverse events in 2022 and 2023. Most involved gastrointestinal complications such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Importantly, those figures largely reflect the period before GLP-1 marketing reached its current saturation point. The prediction was that widespread use would inevitably produce a growing number of serious adverse events simply because so many people were taking the drugs. That appears to be exactly what happened.

Most troubling is a finding that health plans, such as UnitedHealthcare, noted a 10% year-over-year increase in emergency department visits among members initiating GLP-1 therapies.

Here’s a closer look at the numbers:

2022-2023 Study Baseline: A landmark analysis from the Annals of Internal Medicine identified an estimated 24,499 emergency department visits tied to the GLP-1 drug semaglutide across 2022 and 2023 combined. The vast majority of these (over 82%) occurred in 2023 alone.
2024-2025 Spike: Data from the Washington Poison Center and statewide Medscape metrics reveal that poison control exposure cases and overdose-related ER visits doubled from 2024 through 2025.
2026 Trends: While exact 2026 national hospital figures are still being tracked, regional research from the University of New Mexico shows that up to 44% of reported GLP-1 exposure cases in 2026 are severe enough to require an immediate emergency room visit.

✅ Prediction #3: High Rates of Attrition

How's Your Body Image Doing?

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 20:05:07 GMT

My latest piece on Forbes.com about the trending term “ghost fat”

The latest essay for VOLUMINATI takes on the “wellness journey”

Checking in weekly with your body image can help you feel less overwhelmed and may even help you spot positive or negative patterns. Let’s do this!

Having a small, easy action item helps you learn to take care of yourself and your body image. Ready for your last check-in question?

This week, notice if checking in with your body image helped you feel more clear or empowered.

This week I’d love to talk about letting embodiment, joy and love live alongside anxiety, fear and rage.

How's Your Body Image Doing?

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 18:00:29 GMT

My latest piece on Forbes.com about the trending term “ghost fat”

The latest essay for VOLUMINATI came out last week and takes on the “wellness journey”

Checking in weekly with your body image can help you feel less overwhelmed and may even help you spot positive or negative patterns. Let’s do this!

Having a small, easy action item helps you learn to take care of yourself and your body image. Ready for your last check-in question?

This week, notice if checking in with your body image helped you feel more clear or empowered.

This week a perfect stranger in Reno leaned over while I was eating a flaky pastry and told me an incredible secret that maybe unlocked the meaning of life? Before I get to that, though, let me set the scene.

I was in the hot, hot heat of Reno, Nevada for a few days teaching two classes - one at Girls Rock Camp Reno on the importance of plus-size front women and body diversity on stages, and the other at The Radical Cat bookstore on surrealist writing and the body.

Between class one and class two, I settled into this new bakery called Beloved’s. I had actually already been there earlier that morning for this delicious fig and custard tart, and was returning for a lunch of an aioli-soaked Italian sandwich with arugula, meats and pickled peppers, plus an obscenely delicious and flaky hazelnut chocolate croissant type thingy, and an iced cortado (extra ice).

a buttery-fingered smudgy photo of the fig tarts

There I was in my boisterously pink and green matching Daisy Button-up set from Joytoast (which, by the way, I’m not even an affiliate, but I just saw is on super sale), when the aforementioned perfect stranger leaned

Why Turning Health Into a "Journey" Makes It Harder to Care for Ourselves

Virgie Tovar — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 15:01:50 GMT

Welcome to the 19th monthly installment of my Substack vertical, VOLUMINATI. Scroll down and press play to listen to this essay.

You’ve probably noticed that the concept of the “wellness journey” or the “weight-loss journey” is ubiquitous right now culturally. You may be surprised to learn that the diet industry didn’t invent this framework. The “wellness journey” is so alluring to us because it borrows from a very old, very familiar storytelling structure called “The Hero’s Journey.” The George Lucas film series Star Wars (and basically every three-act American movie ever made) is an example of The Hero’s Journey. It looks like this:

Act 1: A regular person is called to adventure. They leave behind their ordinary life.
Act 2: They encounter mentors, face challenges and villains, overcome obstacles, and ultimately transform.
Act 3: They eventually return home as a new and improved version of themselves.

In the diet/wellness industry version, the plot doesn’t change significantly and often plays out like this:

Act 1: A regular person is called to pursue wellness or to lose weight. They symbolically leave behind their ordinary life by announcing or confessing on social media that they're starting a journey.
Act 2: They encounter mentors in the form of wellness apps or personal trainers. They face challenges and villains (in this story, the villain is typically the fat body), and ultimately transform. This is signified through progress and update posts.
Act 3: They eventually symbolically return to their old life, but now they are a visibly different, “optimized” version of themselves. This is signified through things like before/after photos.

Though it’s normal to crave adventure and change, the problem with framing healthy behaviors as a journey is that it fundamentally sets people up for failure. I’ll explain how in a moment.

I know the term “healthy behaviors” is not neutral in this culture. In this article, when I use that phrase, I’m talking about a battery of behaviors that have been shown to improve long-term quality of life for humans and that don’t need to be judged through weight changes. Things like: joyful movement, eating enough food and varied types of food, sleeping enough, feeling safe in your relationships, and managing stress.

Healthy behaviors are by their very nature not a journey because they don’t require a hero and they don’t have a final destination.

The point of these behaviors isn’t to look noticeably different. These behaviors may or may not change how someone looks in the short-run or the long-run. These behaviors are also inherently valuable. In the “journey” framework, however, these behaviors often only matter if someone becomes a physically altered version of themself.

Becoming physically altered is not the same as developing sustainable healthy habits across a lifetime. These are two totally different projects that are conflated into one project in our culture.

Back to the problem with framing healthy behaviors as a journey and why it sets people up for failure.

Framing health as a “journey” fundamentally misunderstands and misrepresents what health-promoting behaviors actually are and how they’re developed. Let’s break this down in four parts:

#1 The skills you need to complete a journey are nearly antithetical to the skills you need in order to develop healthy habits.

A journey implies adventure, transformation, milestones, and a destination. Most health-supporting behaviors are much less dramatic than that. They’re repetitive, ordinary, and often boring. They don’t make you a worse or better person, and certainly not a hero.

Building a habit has far more to do with systems, accessibility, and repetition than it does with motivation, inspiration, or personal transformation.

Stanford behavioral scientist and author of Tiny Habits, BJ Fogg, argues that lasting habits are not primarily built through high levels of motivation but through simplicity, consistency, and environmental design.

How's Your Body Image Doing?

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:01:24 GMT

Join me this Tuesday June 16 in Reno, NV at The Radical Cat for a surrealist writing workshop focused on the body. Click here to learn more.

Checking in weekly with your body image can help you feel less overwhelmed and may even help you spot positive or negative patterns. Let’s do this!

Having a small, easy action item helps you learn to take care of yourself and your body image. Ready for your last check-in question?

This week, notice if checking in with your body image helped you feel more clear or empowered.

This week I got an email about this newly trending phrase in the GLP-1 conversation: “ghost fat.”

My literal first reaction reading the phrase “ghost fat:”

How's Your Body Image Doing?

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:01:14 GMT

Join me on June 16 in Reno, NV at The Radical Cat for a surrealist writing workshop focused on the body. Click here to learn more.

Checking in weekly with your body image can help you feel less overwhelmed and may even help you spot positive or negative patterns. Let’s do this!

Having a small, easy action item helps you learn to take care of yourself and your body image. Ready for your last check-in question?

This week, notice if checking in with your body image helped you feel more clear or empowered.

This week I went to an event on Black feminist futurism, which focused on the work of Audre Lorde and Octavia Butler - both plus-size women who used writing in powerful and political ways.

Audre Lorde’s essay “The Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power” was one of the very first things I read as a baby feminist, barely 20 years old. So, it was no surprise that one of my favorite moments from the evening was when a teaching from Audre Lorde was shared:

“Whatever power we have that we don’t use will become an instrument against us, the question of differences is a perfect example. If we do not learn to use our differences constructively they will continue to be used against us as causes for war.”
Audre Lorde

I couldn’t stop thinking about that line. Our body image suffers when our