The body positive Instagrammers you need to follow right now
The body positive Instagrammers you need to follow right now
Fed up with a feed full of thigh gaps and #fitspo? We’ve found the body positive Instagrammers you need to follow right now. From size to skin conditions, they’re helping to diminish body insecurities and redefine beautiful one Insta pic at a time. The body positive movement (or ‘bopo’, as it has been dubbed) is a force to be reckoned with – and these girls are spearheading it.
@theashleygraham
She’s funny, she’s smart, and she unapologetically rocks her curves. American model Ashley Graham is the queen of the bopo movement, regularly posting empowering bikini pics, shoots from all angles and an unfiltered view of cellulite. Sure, her size has become her USP, but it’s also been a beacon of hope for many women whose own figures don’t comply with ‘regular’ beauty standards. If you thought beautiful was one size, Ashley’s here to prove otherwise.
In a recent interview with W Magazine, when asked what question she’s tired of hearing, she replied: ‘”What do you think of the word plus sized?”. At the end of the day I’m tired of hearing that question and having to defend my body. I think that no woman has to defend her body and she should just live her truth. It should never be about the number size of her pants and it should be about what you’re doing in the world. What does her brain look like and not her hip size.’
@mamacaxx
Self-proclaimed ‘survivor, blogger and (role) model’, Mama Cāx’s battle isn’t with size. Diagnosed with bone cancer at the young age of 14, and given just three weeks to live, Mama lost her leg but not her life – and has lived with a full-length prosthetic ever since. Now an activist and ambassador for Alleles (a company that too strives to remove the stigma surrounding amputees by creating stylish covers for prosthetic limbs), she challenges the perception of what it’s really like living with a disability (read: it can be pretty damn fun).
She recently told Huffington Post: ‘Here I was at 16 years old, covered in scars and missing a limb. I did not feel pretty. In the last couple of years I’ve been able to step away from my judgmental self and observe how my loved ones see me. For them my scars represented the battles I won and my prosthetic has made me this super cool cyborg chick. But don’t get me wrong, I have bad days. Some days I wake up and feel so discouraged and ask the universe why did this have to happen to me. Some days I get fed up with the stares and the questions. Ultimately, I’m able to feel pretty and be confident because I surround myself with people who make me feel as such. No one will ever be able to take these feelings away from me.’
@winnieharlow
Former America’s Next Top Model starlet Winnie Harlow was diagnosed with vitiligo aged four. The skin condition causes unusual pigmentation of skin, but, having worked with some of the biggest names in the business (like Diesel and Desigual) and boasting 2.5m followers on the ‘gram, Winnie’s never let it hold her back.
On feeling comfortable in her own skin, she told Elle Canada: ‘As a child, I really hated it. I think, regardless of my skin condition, my mom is very conservative with dressing. Like, when she’s helping me do laundry and she sees a thong, she’s like, ‘What is this dental floss in your laundry basket?’. With my skin, I have to avoid direct contact with the sun. So that combined with my mom being conservative meant I grew up wearing stockings under shorts and long sleeves under tank tops. It was kind of embedded in me that I was supposed to be covering up. As I grew up, people would still stare, but, I don’t know, me feeling uncomfortable just disappeared. I’d be walking out with friends and they’d be like, ‘Don’t you feel everyone staring?’ and I’d be like, ‘No, I actually don’t. I just don’t care.’”
@bodyposipanda
Even before you’ve learned Megan Jayne Crabbe’s philosophy, her account – peppered with pink hair, empowering quotes and ear-to-ear smiles – is a fast ticket to brightening up you feed. But while the Essex-based influencer’s grid might look all unicorns and sunshine, her story is very serious, and very current. Diagnosed with anorexia nervosa aged 14, Megan’s darkest hour culminated in a tiny 65lbs and a feeding tube. As she started to recover, nearly trippling her weight in a year, it was bopo accounts that helped her cope.
‘Body positivity is the only thing that ever allowed me to heal my relationship with food, learn how to eat intuitively and stop torturing myself for how my body looks,’ she told The Independent earlier this year.
@darth_bador
She went viral for that Insta post and continues to promote her ‘soft belly appreciation’ – model Emily Bador has a message to be taken seriously. Having experienced first hand the pressures women have to conform, Emily’s on a mission to spread her message. Why, she asks, can we not have armpit hair or stomach rolls? Raw, unfiltered, and completely unapologetic, Emily’s account offers the real her – scars, stretch marks, softness and all. And it will change your day.
‘Just a quick reminder that social media isn’t real!’ she wrote on one Insta ‘comparison’ pic. ‘The shit we post on social media is a facade. I do it, you do it, none of it’s real! It’s not a bad thing to project a specific image of yourself on your social media at all, but you’ve just gotta remember everyone else is doing it. So stop comparing yourself to others. I constantly catch myself sucking in my stomach and changing the angle of my body so that I look thinner (aka the first photo). It’s almost too easy to do. So, I gotta remind myself that thinner doesn’t mean better. My appearance doesn’t define my worth. And my body doesn’t need be changed to be deemed acceptable. Let’s choose to normalise and embrace our ‘imperfections’ and not hide them please.’
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