The first time I saw a plus sized woman in an advertisement, I was happy. It made me feel beautiful because it showed that you don’t have to be very thin in order to be beautiful.

The fashion industry is continually growing and I’ve noticed that more recently, plus sized models have become more mainstream. At first, I thought that this is amazing because I have been overweight almost my entire life and I had this false perception of what beauty is because I never saw any models that were bigger. I would squeeze my love handles and wear big clothing because I was embarrassed about the way that I looked. I wished that my weight would magically disappear so that I can be beautiful.

Now when I see an advertisement on a plus sized woman or when I see a picture on Facebook

that shows a plus sized woman and it says “who says fat girls can’t slay” it pisses me off. Although the women are bigger, they still don’t look like me.

I constantly see pictures of women with flat stomachs, perfect chests, even more perfect butts, and with no cellulite at all. Society just seems to be setting more standards of what a plus sized woman should look like. I know so many plus sized women that have lumps and bumps and don’t have the same sized breasts as these models and they’re still so beautiful.

Although I appreciate that the fashion industry is more open minded to different kinds of bodies, I wish that it was more accepting of different types of bodies that were more realistic.