👋🏼 Hey ladies!

Welcome to Bodytalk, where we discuss the realities of women’s health, culture, and more. This is our space: To unpack the double standards, to confront the misinformation, and to open up about the things we’ve been told are “TMI”.

Hi friends, and happy February! If you were in the path of the snowstorm, have you felt like you’re having a tough time getting back in the normal swing of things? I, of course, came down with some sort of virus right as soon as the storm ended, so not much normalcy happening around here.

Anyway, speaking of the normal swing of things. Let’s talk about all the things 🗣️

Not to take this to a morbid place, but we have one life, and it’s not going to last forever. And the only thing we’ll have for the duration of that limited lifetime is…well, ourselves.

Our bodies are our forever homes, yet we live in a world that makes us spend our time fixating on all the things that are wrong with those bodies. This has always been a thing, especially for women. I don’t know if there was ever a time when women weren’t made to feel like their value could be distilled down to how closely they matched up to the beauty standard. But now, there’s more to process than ever…and it’s exhausting.

That’s why, when I came across this post on Instagram, I literally let our a massive sigh of relief. We spend so much time and energy in 2026 thinking about all the ways we can alter our looks, and at some point…well, it kind of feels like a waste of time.

In the video, creator Hayley Hoover points out the amount of time we spend thinking about “hip dips and lip flips and microdermabrasion and lipo 360” and protein intake and…well, all the things. Honestly, I’m tired just beginning to think about the full list of aesthetic pursuits Hoover mentions. 

I reached out to Hoover and she told me a bit more about the inspiration for the video. 

“This video is really a message to myself,” she said. “It came to me after a long scrolling session, where I just felt totally bombarded by man-made terms for man-made concepts that were created just to stir up my insecurities. I really needed to remind myself that I don't have to let beauty industry marketing get under my skin.”

Listen, this is all so complicated. Read more.

🔎 Ask Clara: How do beauty standards affect women?

I’m writing to you from my house, which is where I’ve been snowed in for the past five days (and counting). The weather in my city is bad enough that my kids have been out of school all week, but not bad enough that my husband’s business trip was cancelled. So I’m here: Solo parenting and managing my kids virtual learning while also working. It has been a lot, yet also…kind of relaxing in a strange way.

Being snowed in feels a lot like the early days of the pandemic. There’s nowhere to go and not much to do, yet so, so much to manage and think about — and so much that exists outside your control, which is a weird feeling for…well, most millennial women, who tend to thrive on being in control.

How exactly does this relate to women’s health? I suppose it doesn’t exactly. But it does all feel very relevant to the idea of wellness.

A snowstorm invites you to lower the expectations, adjust the standards to which you hold yourself. That’s the tension so many of us feel when it comes to wellness: We know that sometimes, the healthiest thing we can do is give ourselves a break, a rest, or some grace. Yet we also know that sometimes pushing through and getting in that workout, or cooking that nutritious dinner instead of ordering pizza is the healthy choice. 

I guess that’s why I’ve been really connecting this snowstorm experience to the larger concept of wellness. Read more.

 🔎 Ask Clara: What’s the difference between health and wellness?

I just came across a story of a mother who came close to terminating her pregnancy due to how debilitating her symptoms of hyperemesis gravidarum were. And in my opinion, the main takeaway from her story, which was shared by BBC, isn’t about choice — it’s about how our world views pregnant bodies as vessels. We don’t care much about how women feel in their bodies, especially during pregnancy. If we did, we would take conditions like hyperemesis gravidarum more seriously.

Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is a condition that causes intense sickness throughout a pregnancy. This particular mom, who considered terminating her second pregnancy (which was unplanned), could barely care for herself, let alone her child, while dealing with HG. This tracks: Everyone I've spoken to who has had HG reports that they could barely function. It was, in their words, "absolute hell". 

The mom in question did not terminate her pregnancy — and luckily, she found relief. She was able to get her hands on xonvea, a drug that is not routinely prescribed in the UK — this woman was only able to access the drug because she reportedly had an ectopic pregnancy scare for which she saw a physician who was able to prescribe the medication. Her story could have taken a very different turn without this. Last year, a woman died by suicide while dealing with HG, according to ITV.

And listen. This is a big topic that brings in many other big topics. Read more.

🔎 Ask Clara: What is hyperemesis gravidarum?

I'll admit it: When I first started hearing the phrase "I'm just a girl" on social media, I was fully on board. It felt like the cute, cheeky reclamation of girliness — a way for us to proudly declare that we hold on to girlhood throughout our lives. 

But there's a fine line between celebrating girlhood and participating in the infantilization of women. And I feel like a lot of the conversations I've come across on social media have gone too far in the latter direction.

Take the “headband theory” that’s going around right now. In a viral video, a young woman talks about a theory she and her friends have: They wear headbands to work every so often. “It signifies to people you’re working with that you are in fact just a girl”, she says.

But…why are we still shrinking ourselves in this way? We’re not “just” girls. This isn’t just about words. It’s about the way women are never taken seriously, and how instead of pushing back against that, we’re contributing to it by playing into the stereotypes. Read more.

🔎 Ask Clara: What happens when we don’t listen to women?