The dreaded phrase which haunted our tween and teenage years, the “thigh gap,” has seen a resurgence on social media in recent weeks, terrifyingly rebranded as “legging legs.” Social media has taken to commending women who possess the ‘perfect’ legs to wear a tight pair of trousers, such as leggings. In my humble opinion, this is catastrophic for two reasons, the first being the return of leggings as a fashion item, although I admit that this may be subjective. The second, and somewhat more severe, is the return of the “thigh gap” obsession. For those unaware, the thigh gap is the gap between the two thighs of a woman when she stands upright with her feet together. For many of us, our teenage brains were injected with the idea that this was the perfect female figure, despite the thigh gap having no health benefit and its existence being purely an aesthetic trend.
This is not, of course, an attempt to put down any woman who possess a thigh gap. But sadly, as each new trend enters our FYPs, they bring with them the understanding that anything else is just not good enough. Growing up in the thigh gap obsessed 2000s, the phrase was tattooed across my brain, and I couldn’t bare it as I watched puberty contort my body into something else. I remember standing in front of mirrors, grabbing my inner thighs with both hands and pulling them apart to give me the desired three finger gap between my two legs. This level of self-criticism has unfortunately become synonymous with the female experience.
The phrase “legging legs” has now in fact been banned by TikTok, following widespread concern for its damaging impact. TikTok’s engagement with the promotion of body dissatisfaction on the platform is a positive sign, however, has the damage already been done? 10 years after the “thigh gap’s” golden age, will 2024 be the year we see extreme thinness re-emerge as the pinnacle of western beauty standards?
For most women, an attempt to achieve a thigh-gap, without the necessary natural bone structure, would involve severe weight loss, since area-specific weight loss is impossible. Therefore the promotion of trends such as “legging legs” can only confuse our relationships with our bodies, which for many of the social-media generations, are already skewed.
As trends such as “legging legs” wash over our social media channels, we must remind ourselves that as quickly as they arrive, they vanish, followed by the next trend which tells us the complete opposite to its predecessor. In other words, it will never be possible to consistently have the bodies that 15 year olds on TikTok tell us we should have, and we must take comfort in this impossibility.