F*ck what the internet says your legs should look like in leggings

Did anyone else have a severe flashback to high school when they heard about the “legging legs” trend? It took me straight back to the “thigh gap” days.

The newest social media trend has been banned on TikTok, but it doesn’t mean it hasn’t already harmed people, nor that it has disappeared. The trend encourages women and girls to compare the look of their legs in leggings, talking about how your legs “should” look in leggings. The trend told women and girls, ‘hey, if you want to wear leggings, they need to look this way in them. If they don’t you shouldn’t be wearing them.”

TikTok acted quickly however, redirecting hashtags like #legginglegs and terms like “perfect legging legs” to eating disorder resources. 

We didn’t have TikTok when I was in high school, but Instagram was the newest app and “#fitspo” and thigh gaps were the trend back then. I remember being obsessed with having a thigh gap, and for someone who naturally has thicker thighs, they are largely unattainable. I remember ignoring the science that said “it’s about the way your hips and thighs are naturally shaped” and instead told myself that I didn’t have a thigh gap because I was fat. 

Back then the Instagram logo was a brown camera, you might know the one, and the platform was specifically for photo images. I followed a lot of Fitspo girls back then, I envied them, I wanted to be like them. I wanted their perfectly toned pins, I wanted that thigh gap. I remember contorting myself into ridiculous angles in selfies to make it appear as if I did have a gap between my thighs.

“Thigh gap workouts” used to consist exclusively of squats, leg lifts, donkey kicks and clamshells, and I added them to my exercise routine every single time. They dominated Pintrest feeds, as well as “inspirational” images aimed at inspiring you to get the illusive thigh gap. 

Intermittent fasting, working out obsessively, not eating at all, eating less than 100 calories per day, exclusively drinking those disgusting diet shakes, I tried them all in a desperate attempt to fit this bullshit ideal that to be beautiful you had to have a gap between your fucking thighs.

I was not the only one, girls and women everywhere were beating themselves up, they were restricting themselves, they were doing all these different things to try and alter the natural shape of their body. We all wanted a fucking thigh gap and were insanely jealous of those who were blessed with one. 

This trend might have a different name, but it’s the same thing. It’s this fucked up ideal that there is only one body shape that is acceptable and we should all aspire to have it. Do you know what? Fuck that. 

If you have legs, and you have a pair of leggings, you have legging legs. Fuck what the internet says they should look like while you’re wearing them. You look fabulous.