When Joel Embiid entered the Philadelphia 76ers Media Day at the end of September, the audience responded as they usually do when something unexpected occurs: gradually at first, then all at once. The way the jersey fit his body was different. They appeared to have narrower shoulders. For lack of a better description, a man who had spent years physically controlling the paint by using his sheer mass as a blunt instrument appeared, for lack of a better word, human. Not diminished. Simply lighter. Perhaps, at last, lighter in every way. What the cameras captured is confirmed by the numbers.…
Author: Michael Martinez
In Hollywood, there is a specific type of pressure that doesn’t make news, at least not when it’s occurring. Fitting rooms, studio executives’ side remarks, and the silent calculation of whether a dress sample will zip are all places where it resides. Before she began discussing it, Julia Stiles, one of the more subdued but powerful actresses of her generation, carried that burden for years. Stiles recently appeared on the podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, where she was remarkably open. Her body felt less like her own during her twenties and more like a problem that needed to…
On red carpets, there’s a certain kind of moment when someone leaves looking like a completely different person. Slowly, heads turn. The phones ring. People narrow their eyes a little and quickly ask themselves, “Is that really him?” When Iam Tongi walked the blue carpet at the May 2025 Hollywood premiere of Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch, that is precisely what transpired. The 20-year-old from Kahuku, Hawaii, weighed 115 pounds less than the young man who once performed a song for his late father on a guitar in front of American Idol judges and moved the entire nation to tears.…
There is a certain type of attention that comes from people just watching someone on screen and noticing something has changed, rather than from a red carpet moment or a magazine cover. That’s essentially what has been going on with Nana Mensah for the last year or so. Netflix viewers who are catching up with The Diplomat have been pausing, fast-forwarding, and silently typing her name into search bars. This isn’t due to a dramatic announcement, but rather to a noticeable change in her appearance from previous seasons. This type of change spreads more through word-of-mouth than through press releases.…
Every pharmaceutical story has a moment when the numbers cease to feel like numbers and begin to feel like something completely different. That moment may have come for Novo Nordisk last week in San Diego at The Menopause Society 2026 Annual Meeting, a low-key but quietly important annual event. In front of a group of medical professionals, the company’s researchers presented data on CagriSema, their next-generation obesity injection, demonstrating that over the course of 68 weeks, women in their Phase 3 trial lost an average of 25% of their body weight. Not twenty. Not the meticulously calculated headline figure that…
People follow an actress’s body over time, as if it were a public record to be examined and discussed at any time, and that has a subtle allure. From the gritty Louisiana swamps of True Blood to the post-apocalyptic Pacific Northwest of The Last of Us, Rutina Wesley has been on television long enough for the internet to form opinions. “Rutina Wesley weight gain” is one of the most popular search terms associated with her name these days. It’s worth considering why and what it reveals. Wesley, who will turn 47 in 2026, has never shied away from body-related inquiries.…
When a feature is announced in a game, it is hardly noticeable. What transpired with Atelier Karia is another. One survey question: Do you want the heroine to overeat and gain noticeable weight? — became one of this year’s more surprising cultural flashpoints in gaming. It wasn’t contentious in the sense that gaming disputes typically are, but rather because the response was so biased that not even the developers anticipated it. In late July, Koei Tecmo and Gust carefully crafted their proposal. The main character of Atelier Karia: The Nite Kingdom & the Guide of Memories, Karia, has a unique…
Adriana Lima has never truly been able to live in her own body without criticism from the internet. When she put on weight following her third pregnancy years ago, the internet was ruthless, with mocking posts, before-and-after comparisons, and the typical cruelty reserved for famous women who momentarily resemble regular people. Now that images from Paris Fashion Week are making the rounds once more, the response is completely different. People aren’t making comments about gaining weight this time. They fear she has lost too much. When Lima showed up on September 29 at the Revolve Launch Magazine Photocall in Paris,…