This Disturbing 'Cinderella' Diet Challenge Is Going Viral

And in other frustrating news, a really dumb body aesthetic is gaining traction on the interwebs, and guess who is NOT here for it? (Me. It’s me.)

Meet the “Cinderella weight,” a diet challenge in which the end goal is to have similar weight proportions as Cinderella—you know, that fictional, anatomically-incorrect Disney character with a waist the size of a stick? Yeah, that one. Doesn’t it already sound so happy and healthy?

The “challenge” is already allegedly becoming popular in Japan (opens in new tab), and now, as Revelist (opens in new tab) reports, it’s catching fire on Twitter around the world.

Apparently, the "goal" weight is calculated by squaring a person’s height in meters, and then multiplying that number by 18—which is math we won’t do for you, because we believe your body is genuinely perfect and beautiful the way it is, and numbers shouldn’t matter. But, to give you an image, the Cinderella weight for me, a 5’11” woman, would be 128 pounds—a whopping 20 pounds less than my naturally slim, flat-butted body currently is.

Basically, a Cinderella weight aims for a body mass index of 18, which is officially classified as underweight on the BMI scale (though it should also be known that the BMI scale is basically scientifically bogus (opens in new tab)). Still, there’s nothin’ about this “diet” that promotes healthy weight loss, if you’re even into that sort of thing.

And though I’m the president, the vice president, and the treasurer of the Anti-Body Shaming Club, I can’t get behind any “trend” that promotes unrealistic and unhealthy body expectations. Sure, it’s one thing if your body already naturally falls within the random constraints of the Cinderella body type, but it’s another thing if you’re actively attempting to fit into this dumb mold. She's a cartoon character, remember?

So please, can we leave this “diet” where it belongs? In the fantastical, fictional world of fairy tales.