New York Magazine - 02.03.2020

MARCH 2 15, 2020 | THE CUT 39

i live in a world of thin people.I interview the

famously thin—actors, models, musicians, influencers—

but mostly I observe them. I know their habits, but I’m

also aware that I am not one of them.

Once, I went to a photo shoot to meet the actress Emily Blunt

for a magazine profile I was writing. She was getting her hair and

makeup done, so I was killing time before we were introduced. I

set my bag on a green velvet sofa and eventually made my way to

a table strewn with the remnants of a catered lunch: quinoa salad,

grilled chicken, iced tea, and a plate of dairy-free, flourless brown-

ies. I sat down and ate one brownie after another, the way I always

eat things, without savoring them, as if the act of eating needed to

be gotten over with as quickly as possible. With no dairy or flour,

the brownies were almost healthy, I figured. A bearded photogra-

phy assistant wandered inside to get a cable while I was stuffing

my face. I turned my back to him, as if that would hide my crime

of appetite.

FEED

STYLING BY INDYA BROWN; HAIR BY WALTON NUNEZ/THE BROOKS AGENCY; MAKEUP BY LARA KAISER/SHEN BEAUTY; DRESS BY MARA HOFFMAN AT SAKS.COM; EARRINGS BY AGMES AT AGMESNYC.COM; ALL OTHER JEWELRY MARISA’S OWN.

Photograph by MOLLY MATALON

The shoot was just a few weeks after Blunt had given birth

to her second daughter—“My Bean,” she called her in her lilting

accent—and I’m so nosy that I’d snuck first thing into the

wardrobe area of the shoot to see what size jeans she currently

wore: 26. Which is about a size 2. I realize that is a little bit

compulsive. I could try to say I was checking to be a good jour-

nalist, but really I was doing what all women learn to do:

indulge in a morbid kind of curiosity about each other through

our bodies and how we each measure up.

When I heard Blunt coming down the stairs, there was just

enough time to rearrange the remaining brownies so it didn’t look

like a troop of ravenous Girl Scouts had been at them. Blunt

smiled graciously and gestured toward the brownies. “You really

must try one,” she said to me, adding that the brownies were just

so good, so rich, that she was satisfied with just one small bite.

Was this how normal people’s brains reacted to food—one

nibble and you were satisfied? I had eaten perhaps four brownies

in less than five minutes and stuffed another half a dozen in my

bag to devour at home, alone.

I am nearly constantly aware of the feeling of my stomach

hanging down toward my pelvis, of my thighs rubbing together,

of the fat under my chin touching my neck when I look down. And

I have tried my best to change my body—dieting, working out,

spas, personal trainers, radical body acceptance, Botox, fillers,

fat-melting shots of Kybella in an attempt to get rid of a double

MIND-SETS

B i g Fe e l s

I have begun to see people who

obsess about their weight as part of

their lifestyle as a class of their own.

By Marisa Meltzer