For many women, there is a persistent feeling that follows them through different stages of life: the sense they should lose weight.
Often, it is only in hindsight that they realise they were already in a body they now wish they had appreciated.
That pressure sits within a wider cultural moment, where concerns are growing that the ultra-thin, early-2000s aesthetic is making a comeback.
At the same time, weight-loss medications are being promoted as fast solutions for obesity, with more than half-a-million Australians taking drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro each month, as dietitians raise concerns about long-term impacts.
Against this backdrop, a counter-movement is building – shifting focus from being smaller to strength, capability and health.
Actor Hilary Duff recently joined that pushback with a ‘Stronger Not Smaller’ campaign, encouraging women to prioritise strength and performance over size.
“I grew up during that time where all of us were trying to, like, disappear and be waifs, and that’s not natural for my body and for most of our bodies, especially as we endure hormonal changes, pregnancy and motherhood,” she said during an interview with Time magazine.
For Sunshine Coast personal trainer and wellness advocate Katrina Scotland, that tension has shaped her career and her own relationship with her body.
Katrina is 46, married, and has three children – aged 16, 18 and 20. She has been involved in the fitness industry for nearly 15 years.
“I was born in 1979, so I was a teenager right in the thick of the ’90s when every magazine like Cleo and Dolly was filled with stick-thin, tall models and that was just … the ideal,” Katrina says.
“As a teenager, if I wasn’t hungry, I simply wouldn’t eat.
“I didn’t think about food as fuel at all. I just wanted to be as small as possible.”
That mindset carried through into her mid-20s.
“At 26, I fell pregnant with my first child and put on 20kg. Then, 16kg with each of my next two. But in those moments, my priority completely shifted: healthy babies were all that mattered,” she says.
Everything changed when she discovered strength training.
“I got stronger than I’d ever been in my life – more muscle than I’d ever had,” Katrina says.
“I could keep up with my kids.
“There’s something really powerful about realising that you, as a mum, are in better shape than you were before kids – that flipped something in my brain for good.”
Her mindset around food changed as well.
“It’s about fuelling my body to support my training and my life, keeping my cortisol in check, protecting my muscle mass and bone density, and staying strong and moving well for as long as I possibly can,” Katrina says.
“I’m stronger now at 46 than I was at 35 – even stronger than I was in my 20s.
“That’s not luck and it’s not genetics – it’s consistency and lifting heavy.”
But she says bodybuilding also exposed the darker side of appearance pressure.
“Being around other competitors (some of them around 20 years old when I was 35), I watched these incredible women doing this incredibly hard thing, looking amazing and absolutely tearing themselves apart with negative self-talk,” she says.
“It genuinely made me sad.
“I found myself trying to build them up, almost in a mum role, trying to make them believe in themselves and see how amazing they looked.”
That experience changed how she speaks about herself.
“I didn’t want to think or talk about myself in ways I’d hate to hear come out of my daughter’s mouth,” Katrina says.
Despite growing awareness of strength-based messaging, she believes cultural pressure has returned.
“For a while there, I genuinely felt like the narrative was shifting – that stronger was becoming the new goal,” Katrina says.
“But honestly? I think it’s swung back. And in some ways, it’s worse than it’s ever been. Social media is absolutely saturated with calorie-deficit content right now: how to be in a deficit, what people eat in a deficit, deficit meal plans –it’s everywhere.”
Katrina believes many women are being sold unrealistic solutions.
“What really frustrates me is that so many of these women could get incredible results simply by eating at maintenance calories, lifting heavier, sleeping well, managing stress and focusing on food quality and timing.” she says.
“But that’s not a sexy quick-fix.
“So, it doesn’t get the airtime.”
People want results immediately, and that’s driving the weight-loss injection trend, Katrina says.
“People take the injection. They get smaller fast. They think it’s working,” she says.
“But a lot of them are becoming frail, losing muscle mass, and have no idea the damage they’re doing long term. And when celebrities like Demi Moore are visibly very thin and people are calling it ‘goals’, that sends a dangerous message.”
Katrina says artificial intelligence and heavy photo editing aren’t helping, either.
“When the images people are comparing themselves to aren’t even real – no cellulite, no softness, no normal human body – the goalposts become completely impossible,” she says.
Looking ahead, Katrina is particularly concerned about women entering menopause after years of dieting culture.
“These women are walking into the hardest hormonal transition of their lives with very little in the tank,” she says.
“Strength training is one of the most powerful things we can do for our bodies.
“It builds lean muscle, boosts metabolism, strengthens bones and joints, improves insulin sensitivity, sharpens your focus and is honestly one of the best mood lifters out there.”
Her message to younger women is simple: “Stop trying to be smaller and start trying to be stronger”.
“I’d tell my younger self to stop thinking about today and start thinking about five, 10, 20 years from now,” she says.
“I actually think about 86-year-old me regularly. I want her to be strong, mobile and still doing the things she loves. The work I put in now is for her.
“And fuel your body. Food is not the enemy – it never was. It’s the thing that makes all of it possible.”
To learn more about Katrina Scotland’s personal training, visit perimenopausepowerreset.com.
