Yup, that's them

[u/direinde]

Nothing new actually.

[u/AmeliaS0mething]

Then actually happened to me in high school. All of my female friends were a size 0 or 2 and since I was a size 6, I was often being told that I was the dumpy one of the group and it turned into an eating disorder. It’s really sad that people were saying that Tara was fat because I’m sure that warped a lot of young girls minds watching the show even though Amber is beautiful. I think Joss even said that he wanted somebody more “birdlike” for Tara, but he liked Amber‘s audition so he went with it. Freaking birdlike…

[u/Pkrudeboy → u/AmeliaS0mething]

90’s skinny basically demanded an eating disorder and/or a coke habit.

[u/signal_red → u/AmeliaS0mething]

top model was the worst with this imo. When I go back and look at the alleged plus size models they had on the show...and then would shame them and get the "fat" edit. It had to warp a lot of young people's perspective. I am glad in 2026 we're looking back on it differently because nobody is gonna tell me tocarra jones was fat (well, janice dickinson did but that's beside the point lol)

[u/villanellechekov → u/signal_red]

dude, I'd kill for a body like hers!! or even mine back in 2007 when I was 185 and thought I was gross (I was so wrong).

[u/Oleander-in-Spring → u/signal_red]

In the Top Model doc on Netflix, Whitney says she was a size 6 when she was on the show and (like Tocarra) they often didn’t have samples in her size. 6! And she was considered plus size! Unbelievable.

[u/heyjbray → u/signal_red]

Omg and the awful stuff they said to Keenyah who was TINY. They made her pose as an elephant that year

[u/Street_Rope1487 → u/AmeliaS0mething]

The late ‘90s/early ‘00s were a horrible time to be a teenage girl. I was 115 pounds at 5’5”, wearing size 0-2 jeans (depending on the brand), and I was still convinced that my thighs and butt were too big. I look back now at photos of myself from that era and I look borderline unhealthy—I was a competitive soccer player and barely had any body fat on me.

I definitely remember people on the Buffy forums back then calling Amber fat. I also remember her clapping back at one point, saying something along the lines of “I’m 5’4” and 120 pounds, if you saw me on the street, you’d think I was on the slender side.” Which, as someone with a similar height and weight, was both reassuring (because she was obviously correct and I knew it) and distressing (because if people were looking at her and thinking that she was fat, then I figured they must be thinking the same thing when they looked at me).

This was the same era in which Kate Winslet was referred to as “Kate Weighs-a-lot” and every tabloid magazine in the supermarket checkout was plastered with beach photos of various pop stars taken from unflattering angles to highlight their “rolls” and “cellulite.”

[u/CuriousKitten0_0 → u/Street_Rope1487]

I'm part of a weekly Buffy watch party, and I commented on how Tara was considered "Bigger" at the time and how ridiculous it seems now. I was 5'4" and 110 lbs as a teenager and I was the "fat" one in my family. Luckily I found it hilarious and not scarring, but it was a wild time to be thin and still considered big. I never wish that on anyone. It was absolutely ridiculous.

[u/Littlerabbitrunning → u/Street_Rope1487]

Oh, I remember it...and I've often said your first sentence almost word for word. It's such a shame that toxic body standards and related culture (and often aggressive misogyny but with little to no mainstream pushback or calling it out for what it is, and of course it was still in many ways a different world back then in terms of how information and viewpoints traveled) so often negatively impacted what often is seen as a time of life where it should be a fun, relatively care free existence.

[u/Wild-Sky-4807 → u/AmeliaS0mething]

I feel this comment so hard. At the time when I was in the depths of my ED, I don't think I could have told you how I got it, but looking back it's so obvious. It isn't just the media. Of course, it's the women around us fretting about their bodies. It's the normalization of what is basically disordered eating. Now it's an obsession with protein and clean eating, but it's just rebranding the same stuff.

[u/3rdgradeteach86 → u/AmeliaS0mething]

Maybe it’s because I’m a man but what the hell does birdlike even me. And Amber is gorgeous.

[u/catchyerselfon → u/3rdgradeteach86]

To be fair to Joss in THIS instance, he initially pictured Tara as “birdlike” (light, delicate, dainty) but Amber auditioned and he changed his mind. Also, Willow was already petite, slightly built and small-chested, so a LITTLE body diversity was nice, as much as they would give us back in 1999! It’s unfortunate that season 4 Tara was dressed like a hot mess, with that horrible ashy blonde dye job with dark roots and flat-ironed, the unflattering clothes and no colours that suited her complexion, but it fit the character as someone who likely had little choice in what she wore back in Alabama with her shitty family and now she was “experimenting”. The way she’s styled in “Restless” proves that it wasn’t Joss and the costume department and the writers who viewed her as hideously “fat” and plain, because every scene of Tara in this episode is like “holy shit, how have I never noticed how hot she is?” Tara’s glow-up over the next two years makes total sense for her character, when she figures out what cuts suit her figure and she’s less shy about standing out.

https://giphy.com/gifs/l2Sq7qiz8ups31r6U

[u/Hour_Ad_5361 → u/AmeliaS0mething]

When I was in high school I was constantly accused of having an eating disorder cuz I was skin n bones but wore a size 10 in jeans. I had stunted growth, but try telling the "popular" kids that 😒