Being 100 percent happy in the skin you’re in is by far one of the most difficult things to do. There’s always something you’re going to wish looked different on your body; whether it be your weight, your freckles, the gap between your teeth or your scars. Each of those things make you who you are, and who that is is beautiful. No ifs, ands or buts. Here are nine celebrities who have taken a stand for body positivity.
1. Emma Stone
“My great hope for us as young women is to start being kinder to ourselves so that we can be kinder to each other. To stop shaming ourselves and other people for things we don’t know the full story on — whether someone is too fat, too skinny, too short, too tall, too loud, too quiet, too anything. There’s a sense that we’re all ‘too’ something, and we’re all not enough.”
Literal perfection.
2. Ashley Graham
“I refuse to let others dictate how I live my life and what my body should look like for their own comfort. Any neither should you. Let’s worry about our own bodies.”
Other people don’t get to dictate how we should or shouldn’t look. That’s entirely up to you. As it should be.
3. Iskra Lawrence
“Every single one of us has so much value and so much worth that is so much more than just skin,” Lawrence said in a YouTube video. “You deserve to love yourself. You deserve to feel comfortable and confident.”
We all deserve to feel that way.
4. Kelly Clarkson
“[E]veryone in the magazines is Photoshopped! Beyoncé is one of the most beautiful girls in the world, but she gets Photoshopped too. We’re all human! … It affected me when people were saying about me and some other artists that we were the ‘thicker’ ones. I’d be a liar if I said I was always fine with it. But I’m wise enough by now to know that you’re never going to please everyone so you may as well stop trying.”
You will never be able to please everyone, so it’s not worth trying to. Someone out there is always going to have something negative to say.
5. Aly Raisman
“Shoutout to all the boys from 5th to 9th grade who made fun of me for being ‘too strong.’ Thanks for forcing me to learn to love myself and my body. My muscular arms that were considered weird and gross when I was younger have made me one of the best gymnasts on the planet. Don’t ever let anyone tell you how you should or shouldn’t look. There is no such thing as a perfect body type.”
Sometimes it takes someone trying to knock you down to teach you how to stand back up and love you for you.
6. Ariana Grande
“We live in a day and age where people make it impossible for women, men, anyone to embrace themselves exactly how they are. Diversity is sexy! Loving yourself is sexy! You know what is not sexy? Misogyny, objectifying, labeling, comparing and body shaming! Talking about people’s bodies as if they’re on display asking for your approval/opinion. They are not! Celebrate yourself. Celebrate others. The things that make us different from one another make us beautiful.”
It’s so easy to pinpoint women who are body shamed in today’s world that we’ve forgotten that men are held to a standard, too. I await the day when it’s sexy to embrace exactly who you are in spite of your flaws, and maybe that day you don’t see them as flaws, but mere aspects of the beautiful person you are.
7. Jennifer Aniston
“All bodies are beautiful; let’s face it. We are so overly critical of ourselves — with the obsession with perfection, trying to reach a goal that’s unrealistic.”
If someone as goddess-like as Jennifer Aniston over-criticizes herself, then we all absolutely have a long way to go.
8. Lady Gaga
“I heard my body is a topic of conversation so I wanted to say, I’m proud of my body and you should be proud of yours too,” Gaga wrote on Instagram. “No matter who you are or what you do. I could give you a million reasons why you don’t need to cater to anyone or anything to succeed. Be you, and be relentlessly you. That’s the stuff of champions.”
Just be you.
9. Hilary Duff
Since websites and magazines love to share ‘celeb flaws’ — well I have them! My body has given me the greatest gift of my life: Luca, 5 years ago. I’m turning 30 in September and my body is healthy and gets me where I need to go. Ladies, let’s be proud of what we’ve got and stop wasting precious time in the day wishing we were different, better, and unflawed.”
No point wasting your time trying to change the things you wish were different about yourself.
Every day, girls are told they’re too fat, too skinny, too this, too that, and these celebs are saying enough is enough. It’s time for us to say it, too. Enough is enough. Let’s love ourselves in spite of everything we wish we could change. We can’t change it, and we shouldn’t. Every aspect of our lives, every little mark on our skin or extra pound we gain, they all contribute to who we are as beautiful, incredibly strong women.