{"id":420458,"date":"2026-04-27T19:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T19:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/420458\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T19:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T19:38:08","slug":"i-live-in-the-grip-of-the-fat-girl-algorithm-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/420458\/","title":{"rendered":"I live in the grip of the fat-girl algorithm \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was having lunch in Trinity<\/a> one day, taking a break from my work as a tutor in the Access programme. Coffee in one hand, phone in the other, scrolling.<\/p>\n

Facebook first. Kirstey looks well! My old pal from Dublin 1<\/a> has posted a \u201cbefore-and-after\u201d picture. She is tanned, face beaming, hair done in the \u201cafter\u201d. I screengrab, worry for a second she will be notified of this. Then open it, and zoom in.<\/p>\n

Wow, she\u2019s lost at least two stone \u2013 three dress sizes down, she claims. It\u2019s more like two with a two-stone loss. A stone equals one dress size, according to the Slimming World<\/a> leaders. Her abs look great, though. And she seems happy. I heard she\u2019s bagged herself a new fella too. Probably all due to the newfound confidence in her body.<\/p>\n

I browse back to Facebook, read her post. She has been working with Pure Fitness. She is thanking someone called \u201cGer\u201d for her new body. I note the roll of fat hanging over my jeans. I catch sight of my double chin in the reflection of my phone.<\/p>\n

I screengrab Ger\u2019s details.<\/p>\n

I will follow up with him later.<\/p>\n

I live in the grip of the fat-girl algorithm: Instagram, Facebook and \u201cbefore-and-after\u201d pictures are my daily dish. Everywhere I look, women are posting their \u201cbefore\u201d pictures, their fat pictures, their failing pictures, alongside their \u201cafter\u201d photos: their thin, successful pictures. Women are talking into my screen about how they did it, how they succeeded in their transformations. So many year-to-change-my-life stories. I feel sick and alone, and like I need so much more than a year to change my life.<\/p>\n

The side-by-side images remind me of pictures I have shared: a middle-aged woman standing in her bra and knickers, showing her failings and her successes to the world.<\/p>\n

Rolls of fat and cellulite and sadness appear in the left-hand pictures, the \u201cbefore\u201d pictures, and the left-hand life. In the right-hand pictures, the \u201cafter\u201d pictures, is the woman who has \u201cdone the work\u201d, \u201ccommitted\u201d to herself, stayed \u201con plan\u201d. She stands tall: taut, toned abs, fake tan and curled hair \u2013 success in the form of skinniness.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the norm now for my working-class friends to be poking and prodding themselves with needles and fillers<\/p>\n

All the comments are directed at the woman in the right-hand world \u2013 encouraging the \u201cafter\u201d girl, telling her, \u201cThat\u2019s awesome\u201d … \u201cvery inspiring\u201d … \u201cyour waist is so tiny\u201d … \u201cWay to go!!!!!!!!!\u201d … \u201cKeep up the good work!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s face is always sad in the left-hand world, in the \u201cbefore\u201d pictures. Even if she\u2019s not \u201cfat\u201d, if her body is smaller or curvier or bigger, she is sad in the left-hand world. The thing all \u201cbefore-and-after\u201d women all have in common is the desire to alter how they look. To fit. To get to that place where they feel thin.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Our house was wild and unpredictable. I was starved and cold and unloved\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Where they feel like they are enough. Everyone in my algorithm is trying to buy a ticket to the right-hand world.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, Jenny, how are you?\u201d I hear them chatting, look up from my phone, watch their interaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Mel, I\u2019m good … yeah, good … busy with marking. You know yourself … but good.\u201d<\/p>\n

I avert my eyes, try to hide. I don\u2019t want to have to exchange niceties. Mel orders her skinny cappuccino, Jenny an Americano with no milk. I watch them move, my university colleagues. They walk to a table together, at ease in themselves, smiling, chatting.<\/p>\n

\"WriterWriter and academic Katriona O’Sullivan.
\nPhotograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

\u201cYou look so well, Mel … You still doing the Yoga with Lucy in the sports centre?\u201d Jenny looks her up and down, smiling in approval at the tightness of her friend\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m with a private instructor on Camden Street now, 5am starts, but I feel so connected to myself \u2013 and the practice … Ashtanga … it\u2019s changed everything!\u201d<\/p>\n

They smile, more words, something about the benefits of spending two hours a day before work in yoga poses. I can see the benefits: their tiny frames, the sinewy veins that protrude from their necks and arms. The shadow of muscle definition in their legs. The way they fit perfectly into the modest uniform women in academia often wear: Oasis or Warehouse dresses, tight enough to skim their perfect forms, but not too tight to be considered sexy or slutty.<\/p>\n

I self-consciously tug on my River Island jumpsuit, aware that the square neck is revealing just a little too much tit-line. I wish I had the commitment or the command of my body to over-yoga myself into thinness like most of the women in this world.<\/p>\n

A picture of a friend pops up on Instagram. She looks different, lopsided. Her lips changed, puffier. One side a tad bigger than the other. Her eyebrows dip in the centre \u2013 forehead smoother than I remember. Her post reads: \u201cJen\u2019s injectables have transformed the way I feel about me and my body.\u201d She tags Jen. I click through.<\/p>\n

Swaths of women\u2019s faces open before me. Rows and rows, columns and columns of lips and foreheads, \u201cbefores-and-afters\u201d. I click the reels. A half-famous Instagrammer from Tallaght is getting gifted some lips and eyebrows. I turn it off as the needle goes in. It looks sore. First time I have felt grateful for my \u201cblow job\u201d lips.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Emer McLysaght: I\u2019ve changed my mind about BotoxOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the norm now for my working-class friends to be poking and prodding themselves with needles and fillers; to be getting facials and starting restrictive food plans. Last week, one of them stopped me, pointed to my sun-lined forehead and said, \u201cHave you thought about getting Botox before that gets worse?\u201d<\/p>\n

I watch them transform in front of me. Not just their bodies but their faces and features too \u2013 plumper lips, higher cheeks, smoother brow lines, tattooed eyebrows. Nobody looks like themselves any more.<\/p>\n

The contrast between my people and the people I meet in the university is stark. Academics don\u2019t get lip-fillers. Their eyebrows are mostly their own. They are not posting before-and-after pictures on Instagram. Or on LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

But they don\u2019t escape the fat algorithm \u2013 they just respond in a different way. The university women stay extremely thin. They over-yoga. They eat rice cakes or salad or couscous. They run. They have been taught to control their bodies too, but in ways that seem healthy and are masked in wellness and achievement.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t fly to Turkey in groups to get cheap surgery, to fit in. They don\u2019t let their newly qualified beautician pals pump chemicals into their top lips to fit in. The pressure to be slim and young, thick and curvy or thin and waif-like affects all of us \u2013 but what we do to get there differs based on where we are from.<\/p>\n

Hungry: A Biography of my Body by Katriona O\u2019Sullivan is published in Trade Paperback by Hachette Books Ireland<\/p>\n

If you or someone you know is struggling with body image or disordered eating, support is available through Bodywhys Ireland (www.bodywhys.ie<\/a>) or your GP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was having lunch in Trinity one day, taking a break from my work as a tutor in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2121,93,631,12875,61,60,16952,709,410,125724],"class_list":["post-420458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-womens-health","tag-entertainment","tag-for-you","tag-health-wellness","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-katriona-o-sullivan","tag-magazine","tag-mental-health","tag-women-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}