2025-2026, Flash Fiction

"CoolSculpting™" – Hazel Freemann '29

The women in my family have always fostered a culture of toxic body image. Weight loss magazines, restrictive diets, and crude comments about strangers in swimsuits hid in the cracks and crevices of my childhood life. I was sculpted into a pit of self-hatred and insecurity that came along with my body like the bones and skin and blood. It was the curse of an upbringing with our surname, and my toothpick aunts and potbellied cousins alike picked at their reflections in the mirror. We blamed wide ribcages and slow metabolism and illusion, but in reality, we all wanted the fat scraped off our bones. 

The snow-coated windows and dark rooms have finally provided a way for me to love the imperfections that my family hated. Now, with a full tummy and a happy heart, I’ve never been more grateful for the thickness of our thighs and chubbiness of our cheeks. And, even better, I’ve been able to grant my relatives their biggest wish: to have the fat scraped off their bones without exercise or diet.