After working in the fashion world, Katie Sturino recognized a need for all women
to feel represented. A self-proclaimed “Body Acceptance Advocate,” Sturino has more than 800-thousand social media followers, wrote the best seller, “Body Talk”, hosts a podcast and is the founder of MegaBabe.
Recently, she posted a series called “Surviving the Holidays,” about family dinner table talk, and unnecessary (and inappropriate) comments that may come up in conversation. The post about “body talk” really resonated with me, especially as holiday party season and family dinners are in full swing...
JK: You talk a lot about body neutrality, instead of body positivity. What do you mean by this, what’s the difference?
KS: Body positivity is the concept of celebrating, loving, and being really vocal about your whole body. Painting your stretch marks with glitter! I’m in a place of, ‘okay, this is what I look like, let’s get over it, let’s move forward. Let’s talk about something else.’
JK: Tell me about the article that really changed your perspective about body image.
KS: I was featured as a model for how to get dressed when you are curvy in the summer. I couldn’t believe how many women were like ‘you look just like me!' That was the moment I realized my body wasn’t the problem, and that nothing was actually wrong with my form.
JK: You’ve taken social media, a place that is often filled with photoshopped
pictures and images, and made it empowering for women.
KS: It’s important to make sure women see all different sizes on social media.
Personally, I don’t use filters, I don’t alter my images, and I don’t airbrush myself.
It’s important to watch what we say around younger women. Those of you with children, learn not to speak about your body negatively in front of your kids—both boys and girls. They pick that stuff up, and that’s what they repeat.
JK: The majority of your followers are women. Why is it that women tend to be so hard on each other?
KS: When you see two women standing next to each other, our instinct is to declare a winner. That’s why with my “Supersize the Look” series, I take a celebrity look and recreate it on my own body, which is a size 18/20. I want to show women that they can pull off the styles they think they can’t pull off. It’s important to be able to see yourself. It’s important to feel like you are wanted, and when you walk into a store and they say ‘we don’t carry your size in store, or we don’t make your size at all, it tells you that you are some sort of outlier. As women, we need to pay attention to how we speak to each other and why we feel compelled to criticize each other physically.
JK: Everyone has their self esteem issues, or feelings about their body. Whether you’re a size 2 or 22.
KS: There is no destination when it comes to size. We look at women who are smaller than us and think they have it all figured out. Then we realize that they have the same issue that the bigger girls do. So, you have to ask yourself...
“What’s the point?”
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiesturino/ or @katiesturino
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