Watch out, body-shamers. Celebrities are fighting back.
British model Iskra Lawrence had a creative, and cheeky, response recently to a commenter who called her a “fat cow” on Instagram.
First, she posted a photo of herself wearing lingerie and surrounded by bags of potato chips, a defiant sneer on her face and her left hand buried in a bag as if in mid-snack. Lawrence followed that with a slow-motion Instagram video of her eating a chip and then making an obscene gesture to the camera.
“This is for anyone who has ever been called FAT,” she wrote to her 1.4 million followers. “Ps I do not condone binge eating. I eat whatever I want in moderation. I will eat crisps but I’ll also make healthy home cooked meals and workout regularly. The message is who gives a F what anyone else thinks of you. YOU are the only one who decides your self worth.”
Lawrence, 25, is a model for the Aerie line of lingerie, managing editor of the Runway Riot fashion site and an advocate for the National Eating Disorder Association. By Wednesday afternoon, her video had drawn more than 73,000 likes and almost 5,000 comments, the vast majority of them supportive.
Lawrence, whose posts from Saturday have been widely shared in recent days, joins other celebrities in a seemingly never-ending social media debate about body image and the shaming of people whose appearance doesn’t conform to Hollywood or Madison Avenue’s narrow standards of beauty.
On Tuesday, Amy Schumer complained that Glamour magazine had featured her in an issue celebrating plus-size women without her permission, even though the actress-comedian is a size 6 to 8 in the U.S. Glamour later apologized.
Last month, size-16 model Ashley Graham, one of three on the covers of Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue, defended herself against remarks from supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, who said she believed the cover glamorized being overweight.
And although such body-image scrutiny appears mostly directed at women, men are not immune. “Prison Break” actor Wentworth Miller went public last month about being depressed and “suicidal” six years ago, when paparazzi snapped a photo of him looking chubby.
Lawrence, who was once rejected by modeling agencies who told her she was too big, has said it took her some time to grow comfortable with her body because she kept comparing herself with rail-thin models.
“I just had it in my head that my body was holding me back from my dreams, and that I couldn’t achieve it because my body wasn’t right,” she told Elle in February.
“Eventually I learned you are more than your body. Your body’s your home, and you need to love and respect it. You are meant to be in that body, so look after it, love it, and don’t let it be the reason for not doing something.”