"Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels": Why Won't This Quote Finally Go Away?
Content note: this article discusses eating disorders and quotes language used on pro-anorexia websites. Anyone affected can find support through Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity, on 0808 801 0677 or at beateatingdisorders.org.uk.
In November 2009, Women's Wear Daily asked Kate Moss whether she had a motto. She said she had loads, and offered one: "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." Then she added, almost as an afterthought, "You try and remember, but it never works." That second sentence is probably the most relatable thing a supermodel has ever said in an interview, and it disappeared almost immediately. The first one went everywhere.
Moss didn't invent the line. It had been circulating on pro-anorexia websites since at least 2003, and The Sun reported it started life in a dieting club. Asked about it on NBC in 2018, Moss called it a little jingle she and her housemates used to say when they went for the biscuits, and said she regretted repeating it. The trouble is that a jingle repeated by the face of nineties "heroin chic" doesn't stay in the kitchen. Coming from her, it sounded like insider advice. The eating disorder charity Beat said at the time that the phrase was used "so prominently and so obviously" on pro-anorexia sites. Moss's spokesperson said her words had been misrepresented. Both things may be true, but neither slowed the quote down.
Where "Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels" Ended Up
TIME ranked it sixth on a list of "T-shirt-worthy slogans", which turned out to be less of a joke than intended. In 2011, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned an ad on Zazzle, a print-on-demand site, for a children's T-shirt carrying the slogan, ruling that it could cause "physical, mental or moral harm". In 2013, neuroscientists borrowed it for the title of a paper on the neurobiology of anorexia nervosa. In 2014, the Canadian department store Hudson's Bay pulled a T-shirt pairing the quote with a nutrition label reading zero calories, after shoppers complained online. The designer said it was meant as a dig at the fashion industry, which is a hard joke to land on a shop floor.
For seven words, it had quite the career: a throwaway line about biscuits became a mantra, the mantra became merchandise, and the merchandise turned up in children's sizes. Part of what made it stick is how neatly it packs the thin ideal into a single sentence. Food is the obstacle, hunger is the cost, and being thin is a feeling worth more than anything on the plate.
Same Idea, Updated Vocabulary
By 2018, Moss said she was glad the industry had changed, noting there was "so much more diversity now". In fairness, a lot has shifted since 2009. Size ranges are wider, campaigns look different, and plenty of brands have dropped the idea that one body type sells everything.
The thinking behind the quote has been harder to retire. It tends to come back wearing different clothes. Victoria's Secret ran "The Perfect Body" in 2014 over a line-up of near-identical models, and only reworded it after a petition went viral. In 2025, SkinnyTok creator Liv Schmidt was coaching followers in "skinni" with an i, framed as a "mindset" and a matter of taste rather than restriction. That same year, the ASA banned ads from Next, Marks & Spencer and Zara for showing models who appeared unhealthily thin. In Zara's case, the brand said both models had medical certification and the images were barely edited. The ASA ruled that the pose, lighting and styling still made a protruding collarbone the focal point, which says a lot about how easily the ideal gets reproduced without anyone setting out to do it.
Researchers have linked repeated exposure to thin-ideal imagery with body dissatisfaction for decades, and the pressure hasn't gone anywhere. In Dove's 2024 global study, 2 in 5 women said they would give up a year of their life to achieve their ideal look or body.
There are better answers out there. In 2024, Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher recited the quote on TikTok, then asked, "Uhhh, y'all ever tried being strong?" Fifteen years on, the most useful response to Moss's motto might be the bit of it that nobody remembered: you try, and it never works.
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