This is an essay I wrote for one of my classes that I’m proud of! Read if you want or don’t!

Important to note that I also pitched this to be published in 2025.

Content Warning: This essay discusses the topic of disordered eating, body image, and the lack of care in handling those subjects in the show Gilmore Girls. 

When I first started watching Gilmore Girls, like all of the residents of Stars Hollow, I was drawn in by mother-daughter duo Rory and Lorelai. If you’ve watched the show, you know that they are known for mostly three things: their wits, their looks, and their bottomless stomachs. That last one was something I started to take note of a few episodes in. Intertwined with Rory’s academic rigor, Lorelai’s entrepreneurial pursuits, and their small town adventures was their love and compulsion for food. The two love having movie nights with takeout, heavy meals at Luke’s Diner, and lots of coffee. As Lorelai says in Season 2, “people don’t realize it, but it takes years of training to eat the way we do.” Comments like these–that emphasize the volume of food they eat–are interspersed throughout the show. The thing is, no, it doesn’t take training to eat the way they do, it’s just not real. And there is a serious issue with portraying this diet on our screens. While some of these comments may be cute or funny at first, their frequency in episodes is worthy of sounding some alarms. When I first watched the show as a teenager, I wasn’t able to pinpoint exactly what was wrong with it. Rather, I continued to watch and be captivated by the fun jokes, warm scenery, and layered love triangles. Having now watched the show as an adult, I’m able to see exactly why the show’s elements have contributed to a problematic message. Altogether, Gilmore Girls’ approach to the topic of food is sometimes subtle and unrealistic at best and harmful and dangerous at worst. The show is an example of why our presentation of body image and diet matters and how dialogue, themes, and characters can convey negative messages to viewers. 

With National Eating Disorder Awareness week happening from February 24th – March 2nd and the 25th Anniversary of Gilmore Girls this year, what better time than now to unpack the television we watch and its meaning? Gilmore Girls came out in 2000, the peak of exercise and diet trends. In an article about body image during that era, Michelle Konstantinovsky characterized it by “Abercrombie models, Slimfast diets, and relentless “fat” jokes in every sitcom ever made.” Girlmore Girls was not immune to this. Despite the show airing almost 25 years ago, it has demonstrated its ability to span generations. All seven seasons, along with four reboot episodes, are available on Netflix. Each year, many mothers and daughters begin the show together for the first time. With the show being seemingly timeless, it’s important to understand that all of its elements may not be, and its discussion around food and body image is just one example (nevermind right now its other issues with homophobia, white feminism, and lack of diversity). 

From the beginning of Season 1, Rory and Lorelai are frequent customers at Luke’s Diner. This frequent setting not only is the environment for major plot points but is pivotal for establishing the diet of the two leads. When asked by Luke if she wants a burger, Lorelai will respond with “two and fries.” Not only is the place of Luke’s Diner used to emphasize the ridiculous diet but so is Luke. Throughout the show, moments like the one I mentioned are used to bring the audience’s attention back to the food, making it a topic you cannot ignore. Some might argue that the lack of realism is just a product of it being a television show. Nothing on television is real, right? Everyone knows they’re not really eating that food. This sentiment would be easier to accept if the show’s conversation around food was not made so apparent. From dialogue, casting, and characterization choices, it’s evident that there had to be some intentionality around the show’s body image and diet choices and how far to take it. 

I am not the first to make note of the show’s hyperfixation on food. In a blog post, Millie Cook wrote about the “Skinny Cool Girl” phenomenon demonstrated within Lorelai Gilmore. She says that while Rory and Lorelai’s demonstration of eating food freely must be a better example to girls than those who don’t eat at all, “there is one primary issue with these ‘cool girls’ and it is this: they are all, indisputably and conventionally, thin.” What these characters do is show a diet on the extreme of unhealthy and then show a figure that did not come from that diet. Any young viewer watching who sees Rory in all her determination, beauty, and success, would reasonably take note of her diet because of the way it functions as more of a personality trait. In her post, Cook continues to write about the unrealisticness of the diet and how eating whatever you want only seems to be acceptable for thin women. 

What Cook does not make note of is how Rory and Lorelai’s diets are used as a means of success and comfort in order to achieve their desirable lives. For example, in Season 1, Rory is characterized as a star student. In Episode 4, when Rory gets a bad grade on her paper, she walks into the kitchen and asks for chocolate. Throughout that episode she is seen studying at Luke’s Diner with pie and at home memorizing definitions with potato chips. This is just one example of how food is used as a means to keep up with Rory’s rigorous class work and achieve her dreams of attending Harvard. If any impressionable audience member desires to be more like Rory in her study habits, they’ll probably take note of what she does on her study breaks as well. The show positions food as something that Rory uses as a crutch when she falls short and then what helps her get back on track. 

Another element of the mother-daughter duo’s lives that is enhanced by food is their love lives. As mentioned before, Luke is a character that often takes notice of the lack of nutritional value in Rory and Lorelai’s food. Even before Luke and Lorelai were together, food was used as something the two playfully argued about. Luke would say something snarky and then Lorelai would respond with something witty. In Lorelai’s relationships with other men, they use food to please her and make her happy. In Episode 3, Lorelai’s fiancee, Max Medina, asks Rory’s boyfriend, Dean, “How could they possibly eat more?… They’re bottomless pits.” It was what made them both quirky and lovable. And when Dean and Rory break up, once again, it’s food that Rory uses as her comfort. Lorelai advises her to “get back in [her] pajamas, go to bed, eat nothing but gallons of ice cream and tons of pizza.” Food is used in an alarmingly excessive way to comfort and redeem elements of the women’s lives. 

However, if this was the only way food was portrayed in the show, so be it. It would still be unrealistic and a horrible example for the audience, but at least it didn’t paint the real consequences of this diet as negative. However, the show does just that. It doesn’t stop at the lack of sensitivity in portraying body and diet expectations while using food as a mechanism for enhancement. Rather, the show uses toxic diet culture, plus-sized characters, and fat-shaming dialogue to support the idea that you can eat like Rory and Lorelai, but only if you look like them. 

In an essay written by Mary Kate Miller, she makes notes of the “patriarchal overlays” within the show: “stay thin, be beautiful, and above all else, don’t appear to try.” While I completely agree, what Miller and few TV writers have talked about is how the show uses its characters outside of Rory and Lorelai to embody this message. 

One character who often takes note of the women’s diets is Michel Gerard, concierge at the Independence Inn. He mostly points out their eating habits to then follow it with some diet culture sentiment. Throughout episodes, it’s made clear that Michel is obsessed with eating healthy and has a fear of gaining weight, both of which are signs of an eating disorder of his own. What’s more problematic is the way that Lorelai rolls her eyes and responds with a joke anytime he says something like “someday all of this will catch up with you. You will become the balloon lady, and with any luck I will be here to enjoy it.” Not only do the other characters not negate the fatphobic sentiments Michel makes but they also fail to acknowledge his harmful outlook on his own diet and exercise habits. As a result, he’s positioned in the show as something of a villain because he represents the opposite extreme of Rory and Lorelai. However, it’s ironic, because if one eats like Rory and Lorelai and doesn’t look like them, becoming like Michel is not unlikely for many who struggle with disordered eating. So what is one supposed to think when he’s positioned as a what-not-to-do example contrasted by the happy and carefree Gilmores? It’s just another example of how the show presents confusing ideals and glamorizes one way of being. There was no further conversation given or sensitivity to obvious signs of an eating disorder. His character was simply one that audiences should gloss over, following Lorelai’s lead. Appearing to try to be thin was not a positive option for the Gilmore’s and it was not a positive option for the show. 

Positioned similarly is Sookie St. James. We know that Rory and Lorelai don’t give a second thought to how much and what they eat. Enter Sookie, chef at the Independence Inn. Contrary to the Gilmores, Sookie loves her organic produce and self-cooked meals. Yet, she is a character who is noticeably not thin. Following suit, is Sookie’s love interest, Jackson, who works as a farmer and produce supplier. Similar to Luke and Lorelai, food plays a similar role in their relationship. Sookie and Jackson’s relationship starts because of their bickering over produce. In a disgustingly ironic way, the key difference is that these are two characters who are not thin and arguing over healthy food. It’s also worth mentioning that these characters add a good amount of comedic relief to the show, playing into the “funny fat friend” trope. Two other characters who follow this trend are Babette and Miss Patty, local celebrities of Stars Hollow known for their stellar gossip. While their relationship with food is never notably mentioned, one thing is clear: they love Rory and Lorelai and Rory and Lorelai love them. 

Despite these dear friends, the mother-daughter duo do not resist from fat-shaming commentary. In Season 4, Episode 19, when Rory thinks a man is cheating on her friend, she tells him that  “the redhead has fat thighs.” In Episode 8, Rory writes a review of a ballet performance at Yale and includes her mother’s comment about a “roll of fat under [the ballerina’s] bra strap” and continues to then compare the dancer to a hippo. In the show’s revival from 2016, the “Summer” episode opens with the two fat-shaming multiple characters at the community pool. This dichotomy between having genuine friendships with plus-sized people and then making comments like this points to a deeper message. To me, it says that if you are bigger, you must have some other redeeming trait about you: you have to be funny, cute, eat healthy, or be friendly with those who are thin. 

When I was an impressionable seventeen-year-old girl watching the show for the first time. I wanted to be like Rory, not Babette or Patty or Sookie or Jackson. I wanted to be studious, sought-after, funny, determined, and effortlessly beautiful. When I saw that Rory never cared to eat a vegetable, I thought “maybe this is what effortlessness looks like when it comes to diet and body image.” I was just beginning my own struggles with body dysmorphia and disordered eating habits. I thought that maybe going to this unrealistic extreme was the solution. Deep down, I knew that it wasn’t going to work. It was a television show after all. But like so many other elements of the show, it was comforting. The simple solution to a layered problem was to be more like the character that I saw on the screen. Use food as a comfort, don’t give it much thought, eat like the fictional character and soon it will all feel easier. And when I did that not only was I unhappy but my body did not look like Rory’s, which opened a Pandora’s box to many other negative emotions towards what I looked like and how I ate. The show sparked a fear in me that I had to look like them, but it was followed by deep confusion that I couldn’t get there by doing what they did. Suddenly I was no longer a part of Rory and Lorelai’s cool girl club, I was capable of being subject to their disapproving glances and mean jokes. 

Altogether, Gilmore Girls portrayal of food is harmful not only in the way that it shows an unrealistic diet but also how it uses that diet as a means to inflate the Gilmores and then uses other characters to deflate the realistic outcomes. The other characters are used as a cautionary tale for what could be if you don’t end up like Rory or Lorelai. However, the only cautionary tale that needs to be told is the one before starting this show. Ultimately, Gilmore Girls proves that a small sentiment can lead to a big impact on viewers.