My Female Student is Chasing the "Perfect Body"
Consume enough brain cocaine and having "dat ass" becomes a requirement for life...
About two weeks ago Ms. Lopez called me into the main office.
“Hey Mr. Schuerch, I just wanted to have a quick talk with you about [a student we’ll call] Jessica.”
“Oh yeah? What's up?”
“Well. Me and Ms. Page have noticed that she goes to your after school weightlifting program, and that she’s lost a lot of weight.”
I smiled, “She has. I’m pretty proud of her, she’s put in a lot of work.” I waited as I expected the standard question to come - how do I lose weight?
“Yeah, she has. But we’re worried that she’s starving herself.”
My smile turned upside down real fast, “Oh damn. What makes you think that?”
“Well, she’s lost a lot of weight and sometimes she complains about being lightheaded.”
“I see.”
“Can you keep an eye on her? We’ve talked to her about it, but you're her coach. We think she’ll listen to you better.”
“Absolutely. I’ll talk to Jessica about it at weightlifting today.”
I’ll still never forget the day I had a student walk into the weightlifting interest meeting and say in front of everyone, “Mista, all I care about is getting a dump truck like you.” As I barely avoided breaking down in a fit of laughter, I assured her that the program took special care of the glutes.
8 years ago, a girl joining my after school weightlifting club was a rare occurrence. Usually a tomboy would jump in for a session or two and then decide the smell of rubber mats, rusty iron barbells, and sweaty boys really wasn’t her scene. (Who could blame her?) In 2025 the game has changed.
Now the popular girls ask me what time weightlifting is and if they can do some extra work. What caused the change? Much as I hate to say it, I think it must be TikTok.
If it’s been more than ten years since you’ve walked around high school hallways in between classes you may remember kids laughing and talking with each other trying to find the latest gossip. But the hallways have changed. Now you’ll witness students walking down the hallway like the digital walking dead, barely talking to each other, hooked on brain cocaine. I always wondered what my old man gripe would be…now I know. These goddamn kids need to get off their goddamn phones and find a better goddamn way to enjoy life.
As much as I want to give 100% of hatred toward social media, there is a tiny silver lining from the student body constantly huffing TikTok. Big-booty fitness influencers have infected the minds of the young woman I teach, and suddenly, a goal I have failed to achieve for years has dropped into my lap. Girls want to start lifting weights. They want the badonkadonk. Having “dat ass” is in.
I suppose I can thank J-lo for the original culture shift. My mom was born in the 60’s and she informs me that a rail-thin model named Twiggy was her ideal beauty standard. Then J-lo and Beyonce came along and suddenly having an athletic lower half became the new beauty standard. Having a great booty has been in our culture for some time now…the problem was most women didn’t want to accept that lifting weights was the proper way to chase a juicy butt.
There is an ocean of fitness bullshit out there, some of it good and some of it bad. On the good side fitfluencers have filtered enough truth onto social media that girls have figured out that if they want thick thighs that save lives then they have to start lifting weights. Hence, a sudden interest in gen-z girls asking me about exercises that grow their glutes. On the bad side there is all manner of ludicrous nutrition statements that include crash diets to juice cleanses.
Hence Jessica not eating food.
I’m conflicted by this influx of girls to the gym. On one hand, I have an opportunity to introduce girls to excellent training and nutrition standards. I get the opportunity to give them tools to maintain their health. On the other hand, students are coming to me because they are chasing beauty standards crafted by perfect lighting, filters, photoshop, hormone replacement therapy, plastic surgery, and genetics. It’s as if my kids suddenly got interested in taking care of their health because they love smoking cigarettes
So how do I reconcile this? How do I teach kids how to take care of their health, build strength, and give them sustainable ways to lose weight when needed? How do I make kids who don’t define themselves by the quality of their selfies? Is there a middle ground between finding a way you want to look but not holding yourself to the artificial standards of Chloe Kardashian’s instagram page?
I’ve only got one choice. Control what I can, ignore what I can’t. Social media isn’t going away. These kids scroll on their phones at least 8-10 hours a day. I didn’t make that number up. In health class I asked students to share their screen time numbers. That was the average, one kid had 17 hours. There’s no real way to stop these kids from scrolling and chasing dopamine.
The best I can do is make use of the opportunity before me. Luckily for me, today's beauty standards encourage a big ole curvy ass. A big ole curvy ass requires a fuck ton of heavy leg work in a mild calorie surplus. The strength coach in me knows you gotta work your ass off with squats, lunges, deadlifts, and hip thrusts, eat a high protein diet, and sleep eight hours a day in order to build glute muscle. Luckily, this arbitrary beauty standard almost requires you to be healthy.
This is excellent motivation in the short term to fix my students' eating habits.
The long term fix is tougher. While I train her in the gym, I’m going to have to consciously weave conversations in there that help her realize no beauty standard should ever convince her to starve herself - even if in this particular case, the standard should require the opposite.
Here’s one of the conversations I had with her after my talk with Ms. Lopez:
“Hey Jessica, can I have a word with you for a second?”
In her usual enthusiastic high pitch squeaky voice, “Yeah, sure. Whats up!”
“Hey, so. I want you to walk me through what you ate today. What’d you have for breakfast?”
“I didn’t have anything for breakfast. I try to fast until lunch.”
I wince, “How come you didn’t have any breakfast?”
“I’m trying this intermittent fasting thing. I learned it from TikTok.”
I wince again, “Okay what’d you have for lunch?”
“I had some chicken and rice.”
“Alright, nice. And what about dinner?”
“Ground Beef and some rice again. Some veggies too. Just like you told me to do.”
“Do you ever get light headed?”
“Ummmm, well sometimes. Right before lunch sometimes.”
Okay I thought to myself. This wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Was it great that she was buying into health fads from TikTok? No. Was there anything inherently wrong with intermittent fasting? Not really. Except for the fact that it was real easy to dive into an aggressive calorie deficit that you’re likely to rebound from if you’re not careful.
My guess is she was not being careful.
The light headedness was almost certainly a product of this decision to cut breakfast and adopt a completely new diet. This happens to people when they to wing it, and decide to cut all processed food out and focus on protein. I actually think its a good move in the long run, but if she’s experiencing light headedness, then she’s cutting calories too quickly.
“Okay Jessica, I want you to know something. I think you’re doing a great job losing weight. I think your emphasis on protein is great.”
“I know, right!” she squeaked.
“Yup, so what I’m about to say might sound confusing, but hear me out. I want you to start eating more. The reason you're getting light headed is because you’re probably in a really deep calorie deficit.”
“Okay, but I don’t want to lose my progress.”
I laugh, “Trust me, you won’t. If you’re worried, all I want you to do is start eating breakfast. Its an easy way to get some more calories and help you reach your goal.”
“But won’t more calories make me gain weight?”
“Not necessarily, you’ll just lose weight slower, and you won’t have to deal with that light headedness you sometimes feel. Also, its an opportunity to get some more protein.”
“Okay, that’ll help my legs?
“Yup. Even better than you’re doing right now.”
“Yaaaayyyy!” (I swear she talks like that. Sometimes it's like dealing with an over enthusiastic 8 year old.)
“And Jessica?”
“Yes?”
“You know the way you look should never be more important than your health right?”
“Mista! I’m Beautiful no matter what!”
Sigh, I’d have to continue monitoring this situation.
Make sure she believed what she just said.
I really like how you addressed this… Our women’s conditioning teacher wouldn’t approach anyone about it until they passed out in the middle of class.
At that point the lifestyle has already become an intrinsic part of who they are, and much more difficult to overcome.
Thank you for writing this! I feel so happy whenever a teacher addresses these issues, because parents don't often see them!
Also I love your writing style. Are you sure you're not a English teacher in denial???