In the October issue of Glamour, supermodel Kate Upton talks about being told to lose weight. It’s a story we’ve heard far too many times before. Gorgeous sample-size supermodel was told to lose weight in her early days of modeling. First there was Tyra, then Chrissy Teigen, now Kate. And they aren’t the only ones.
Upton explains to the magazine that she was told she needed to slim down “all the time,” and at first she caved to the pressure and dieted. Soon enough, she accepted the fact that a thinner frame was not natural for her body. Kate stopped trying to fit someone else’s idea of how she should look or who she should be. Of those trying to change her, Upton says she needed to “block them out.” She believes that those who try to make you fit something you’re not have too little “vision and creativity.”
In the mag, Kate also talked body shamers and exercise. Of online haters, she says she is finally able to laugh at the types of comments that hurt her in the past. When it comes to fitness, exercise used to be about having certain measurement. Now, she works out for strength and energy.
What we have to learn from Upton’s struggles, which many other sample-size, “straight-size” models share with her, is that the quest to please others, or the industry, has no end. There is no way to win that battle by conforming to what they want you to look like, or the body they want you to have. Even women who most would consider to be extremely thin are told to lose weight. It is impossible to please everyone, in the fashion industry or otherwise. The battle you have to win is with yourself.
You have to decide to love your natural body, and act on that love through living a healthy lifestyle, whatever that may mean for you. Model or not, you have to be stronger and louder than the voices telling you to be someone you aren’t meant to be.
