For those who don't know, Tess Holliday is a UK size 26 model from America. Her cover girl status marked a significant milestone for Cosmopolitan UK as she was the first ever plus-size model to be featured on their front cover. For many, this was an incredible moment. A lot of young women read magazines as they are growing up, which often promote unrealistic beauty expectations, covers plastered with the latest, greatest manifestation of 'perfect'. Wafer thin models: impossibly perfect and impossibly skinny with impossibly long, blonde hair and impossibly straight, shiny, white teeth. In a society where an inordinate heap of pressure is placed on women to look a certain way, where young women are scrutinised from an early age and judged wholly on their appearance until they are trained to be self-conscious of how they look, it felt (and still feels like) a massive win to finally see some positive representation of a different body type. At the time of the magazine's release, some people rightfully revelled, happy that the magazine cover had an image that proves to young women that they don't have to be a size zero to feel beautiful. It acknowledged that there are many different body shapes and sizes, a new phenomenon for a lot of women magazines. Imagine an alien from a planet far, far away has to gather as much information on human beings as possible, ready for some tawdry intergalactic space invasion targeting planet Earth, and the only information they were given about the female species came from magazine covers. It's disconcertingly disturbing that before the front cover of Holliday, they would probably think that all women were the same skinny size and lithe, athletic shape... when truthfully this just isn't the case.
It's really important that people- especially young, impressionable girls- are taught that they don't have to be skinny to be gorgeous, that they can love themselves no matter what. And this crucial lesson was finally, successfully shown with Holliday's cover.
However there were some people who chose to criticise. They saw Holliday's cover as an attempt to promote obesity and to encourage an unhealthy lifestyle. Their blatant outrage at the fact that Holliday graced a magazine cover was vociferous. The haters hid behind their computer and phone screens, taking to social media to lambast Holliday and the magazine itself for teaching young girls that it was 'desirable' or 'healthy' to be overweight. Of course this is ridiculous. It was not the magazine's intention to promote obesity or anything of the sort. Rather, they were trying to show young girls that they can still love themselves no matter what their weight is or whatever perceived 'imperfections' they have that society has labelled as 'wrong' or 'incorrect'.
I think that the people who possessed that wild, uncontrollable, utter rage at Holliday's cover conveyed a multitude of insecurities. Instead of painting Holliday as a villain, their hatred of her success simply showcased their own issues, speaking volumes more about their envy towards the woman who doesn't care what they say about her. Under the surface, their mean comments aren't even really about Holliday's weight or the stupid notion that the magazine cover was encouraging obesity. It was more the fact that Holliday was confident in her appearance and her abilities that wound the haters up. Holliday wasn't (and still isn't) ashamed of her weight. She isn't broken up over her size, she doesn't torture herself with harmful diets where you're only meant to eat 100 calories a day or something equally as moronic as that. Rather, she's a body positivity advocate.
The people that claim Holliday is trying to 'recruit' members to her 'obesity club' are the kind of people that are, in a sense, jealous of her confidence, poise and her unapologetic, unconditional love of herself.
By Frances Hudson
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