When I first read about her success as a model I was super excited. There is someone who doesn't fit the typical thin, pretty, flat-stomached model mold. While I'm all about the plus sized models and diversity in body types, plus size models seem to have a very similar body shape - very hourglass, flat stomach. For lack of a better term or explanation the modeling industry has now gone ahead and created an "acceptable" amount of fat that is still considered attractive.
Enter Holliday - not flat stomached, rocking the non-conventional hourglass who is blowing up the modelling world.
And the world is pissed.
Why? Because this woman is happy with her body. She thinks that her size 22 body is glorious - and it is! She is the embodiment of what makes people uncomfortable and unhappy. She's a size 22, successful and happy woman breaking the conventional mold of happy women.
I was reading through some of the comments and filtering out the blind hate one notion or theme kept coming up. People are ticked off and think that this woman is glorifying obesity and being unhealthy. I feel like many people (although this seems to be starting to shift slowly) still live by this Biggest Loser/before picture mentality. If you're not skinny or "appropriately" curvy you are a before picture. You should automatically feel the need to change the way that you look because you can't be happy with the way you are.
I've had this idea reinforced in many places of my life. The most memorable was actually when I was going through the sign up process to go to a gym in Toronto. The trainer there kept busting out the "you'll look better, you'll find love because you'll look better, you'll love going to the beach and wearing bikinis" sales pitch.
I felt the need to shut him down right there - Excuse me, but I am confident. I am already deserving of love looking the way I do and I already love going to the beach - in a bikini - because I love my body. I got the polite almost "yes yes dear" brush off which frustrated me. I just couldn't understand why this person couldn't understand that I was at a gym to increase my fitness level - not decrease my waistline. My want to just get fitter physically had me whitewashed as a before picture because I didn't fit this person's mold of a confident person.
I think it makes people who buy into this confident, perfect body type pissed when someone doesn't put in the work (dieting, working out, limiting to maintain the perfect body) and gets the result (loving their body, accepting their body). It makes people really fucking pissed when that happens and in turn they lash out with negative comments about glorifying being unhealthy.
The thing is - happiness, self-respect and self-love don't glorify anything. My shameless self-love doesn't glorify anything but body positivity. It doesn't glorify health issues, it doesn't glorify being unhealthy. You don't have to hate your body to want to improve it you can still absolutely love yourself while changing your body. Because my body doesn't fit the traditional perfect body image it's automatically assumed that I hate it, and that makes people feel better. They work hard for their socially-accepted looks, of course it makes them feel better when we hate the way we look.
It makes people angry, it makes people upset, it confuses people, but the thing is - my body is not responsible for anyone's happiness but my own.
My body and I are not responsible for your personal happiness.
I was reading through some of the comments and filtering out the blind hate one notion or theme kept coming up. People are ticked off and think that this woman is glorifying obesity and being unhealthy. I feel like many people (although this seems to be starting to shift slowly) still live by this Biggest Loser/before picture mentality. If you're not skinny or "appropriately" curvy you are a before picture. You should automatically feel the need to change the way that you look because you can't be happy with the way you are.
I've had this idea reinforced in many places of my life. The most memorable was actually when I was going through the sign up process to go to a gym in Toronto. The trainer there kept busting out the "you'll look better, you'll find love because you'll look better, you'll love going to the beach and wearing bikinis" sales pitch.
I felt the need to shut him down right there - Excuse me, but I am confident. I am already deserving of love looking the way I do and I already love going to the beach - in a bikini - because I love my body. I got the polite almost "yes yes dear" brush off which frustrated me. I just couldn't understand why this person couldn't understand that I was at a gym to increase my fitness level - not decrease my waistline. My want to just get fitter physically had me whitewashed as a before picture because I didn't fit this person's mold of a confident person.
I think it makes people who buy into this confident, perfect body type pissed when someone doesn't put in the work (dieting, working out, limiting to maintain the perfect body) and gets the result (loving their body, accepting their body). It makes people really fucking pissed when that happens and in turn they lash out with negative comments about glorifying being unhealthy.
The thing is - happiness, self-respect and self-love don't glorify anything. My shameless self-love doesn't glorify anything but body positivity. It doesn't glorify health issues, it doesn't glorify being unhealthy. You don't have to hate your body to want to improve it you can still absolutely love yourself while changing your body. Because my body doesn't fit the traditional perfect body image it's automatically assumed that I hate it, and that makes people feel better. They work hard for their socially-accepted looks, of course it makes them feel better when we hate the way we look.
It makes people angry, it makes people upset, it confuses people, but the thing is - my body is not responsible for anyone's happiness but my own.
My body and I are not responsible for your personal happiness.
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