What This Cuddly Cat Can Teach Us About Body Acceptance
A curvy model is using a cuddly cat to spread self-acceptance.
Khrystyana, a self-described “body-positive model and poet” from San Francisco, regularly posts inspiring messages promoting health and self-acceptance on her Instagram account, which has 55,000 followers.
Echoing past sentiments such as “Healthy is not the new skinny” and “Have a strong day,” the size-10 model recently shared a nude shot of herself cuddling an orange-and-white cat named Mr. Cute and damning “cruel beauty standards.”
“When we see rolls on cats or babies or adult humans, at what point does the thought of cute chub of a healthy adorableness turn into unattractive get-out-my-sight scarecrow?” Khrystyana asked in the post. “What turns on this mass mental obsessive looks focused disorder?”
The model described how she meets many tweens attempting to lose weight and singling out their peers who don’t meet standards of “mystical perfection.” She wrote, “What happened to us? Whose fault is this? Last thing you want to see up close is a 12-year-old with a custom-made waist trainer.”
Khrystyana added, “May your hearts be broken if you see, but I dare you to wake up and do everything you can to revise cruel beauty standards. Our lives are not meant to live in a self-hating rally, but the opposite. We are meant to be born so we can LIVE in THESE bodies, so we can LOVE ourselves and others. I used to passionately hate all of me for too too long as a kid and a teen and in adulthood. Don’t waste your time doing the same please.”
More than 4,000 people liked the post, and the model even dipped into the comments section to connect with her followers about body image.
In April, Khrystyana also shared a photo reflecting the realities of too-tight shapewear that women routinely squeeze themselves into, writing in part, “Do you really want to stop your blood circulation now…”
And on July 18, she shared another candid photo and post about body acceptance. “This is a lingerie fashion pose commonly accepted among straight size models and not commonly accepted amongst the curve models,” she wrote. “‘Make sure you suck that in,’ especially when shooting lingerie I heard so so many times… Oh well, let’s revise the beauty standards ONE belly at a time.”
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