I've just seen one too many posts that don't like the weight gain plot in the newer episodes, and while it's fine to be uncomfortable with it, I understand a 16-year-old being called out for gaining weight is incredibly condescending and tone-deaf given how society sees weight, I would like better criticisms of it. You do not have to like it, there's plenty wrong with it, but calling it out as "a meaningless plot point", "cruel jokes at Marin's expense" or that "they made Marin insecure", none most of that is true. (Hikaru's whole joke is that he's her mom-figure and nags her about taking care of herself, he loves her, he's not malicious, he's the substitute for the "mom meaning well, but comes off as criticizing" since Marin doesn't have a mom. He's a good guy, please, he's trying to take care of her the way he thinks she needs to be taken are of- okay. sorry, back to the point.)
Like, it would be valid criticism if the story was standard with all the other weight-gain subplots in manga/anime. However, the point of it in My Dress Up Darling is: if you want to do what you want, you have to eat to match that. The story has, up to this point, showed us that her diet isn't balanced, she eats a lot of fatty, calorie dense foods, and almost no vegetables- that's why the Gojo's invited her to eat diner with them every night she wants to, and why Wakana is so scared to eat her cooking and always cooks dinners with less meat and more vegetables. He's doing his best to make up for her deficits, but he doesn't have the courage to tell her outright that her eating habits are going to have negative effects.
Marin doesn't feel insecure about her weight at all! Her two problems are: 1) she's a model and not maintaining industry standards will negatively impact her work, and 2) that she can't fit into her cosplay anymore. She doesn't think she's ugly or disgusting or gross, she just can't do what she wants to because of what she's eating. The same way if you're an athlete: You eat for the life you life you want.
If Marin wants to be a model, she needs to pay attention to what she's eating, which is in character for her. She was bad at making cosplay by herself because she didn't pay attention to the details. She's bad a cooking because she doesn't pay attention to the details and does what she wants without thinking about how if effects her body. She gets energy and she feels full - but she's not getting the full range of nutrition she needs.
And Gojo doesn't make her feel bad about it either. When she says she's gained weight and can't fit into her cosplays anymore, his first instinct is to resize them, he doesn't care that she's gained weight, he didn't even notice a change. He doesn't try to make her feel bad about it, he tries to find the source of her problem and help her fix it the way she wants to. It doesn't look like anyone is deliberately trying to make her feel bad about it, except the people who worry about her modeling career, the main thing they point out is that she is paid to be a shape and if she stops being that shape she will not be paid anymore. That's not, like, a good thing (I can go on an entire rant about modeling as an industry), but it is within the intended message of "eat for the life you want".
Is this plot point done clumsily and to death in media aimed at teenagers? Yes. But My Dress Up Darling is trying to do it differently, trying to put forward a better way to frame the story. And for people for whom "deprogramming the general audiences of anime watchers ideas and opinions on the way society treats fat and weight gain" is against industry standards, I appreciate that they're at least trying to come at it from another angle, even if most people are, apparently, missing the intended message.
