A few weeks ago Chrissy Teigen, 29, posted an Instagram picture with the caption: “Bruises from bumping kitchen drawer handles for a week. Stretchies say hi!”
Chrissy embraces her stretchmarks and endearingly calls her “stretchies.” Digging a little deeper (nothing says procrastination like 30 minutes of googling “Chrissy Teigen stretchies), I found that she has been promoting this messages for quite some time. In 2012, she tweeted “I embrace you, stretchies,” and uploaded a different picture of her stretch marks. Chrissy’s post sparked a mini social media movment for women (and men) to post self-love pictures of them and their stretch marks #loveyourlines. Here are some of my favorites that have been okay’ed to republish:
In all three of the above pictures, women are showing the world that stretch marks should be accepted as a customary part of life and one’s body. They are nothing to hate. Some women even say that they have “earned their stripes” through weight loss/gain, motherhood, or puberty.
I think it is important to note that Chrissy does not have any kids and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 2014. We usually associate stretch marks with pregnancy and swimsuit modeling with the absence of stretch marks. It is a beautiful thing that Chrissy has embraced her natural body and encourages others to do the same.