Liz Black asked Gabi Gregg; Style blogger and swimwear designer,  “How can someone who is struggling with self-confidence break out of that and embrace themselves as they are?”  Gabi responded “It’s important to know that the road to self-confidence doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a journey. My advice would be to follow people who have a similar body type to your own on social media, because representation is more important than we realize. The more often you see confident women with bodies that look like yours, the more you will grow to love your own.”

I agree with Gabi representation matters.  It can be hard to picture yourself doing or wearing something if you’ve never seen someone that looks like you ever doing it before.  It can be hard for plus size girls and young women to find beauty in themselves when they never see it.  Never seeing yourself in a position of confidence can leave a person feeling less than beautiful.

Before someone yells out it’s called self confidence.  Self confidence needs to be supported by others just like any other learned skill.  I was lucky to grow up within a family that always made me feel beautiful.  I’ve always been a fat girl.  However, my mom wasn’t plus size.  The first time I regularly saw a woman who looked like me in my home was on television.  It was Shirley Hemphill’s character Shirley Wilson from What’s Happening!!.  She was  short, brown, and round like me.  She was sassy and garnered respect for everyone around her.  Even though she was the butt of many fat jokes she was beautiful to me.

Now that I’m older, I fully appreciate the importance of being represented.  Within the plus size community you can find all different body types.  However, It can sometimes feel that the hour glass shape is the only shape that’s celebrated.  That’s not my shape and I’m ok with that.  I represent the short girls with a little extra in the middle.  Not everyone is going to comply with .70 waist-to-hip ratio to have  that socially acceptable curvy figure.  Like Gabi said follow a few people that represent you in images and know that if she can rock a style so can you.  You’re beauty isn’t limited to what society tells you what beauty is.

con·fi·dence  

Who is the person or character you feel represents you in media?

FYI:

You can follow this blog on Bloglovin here.  Also lately I’ve be doing most of my posting on snapchat@fatgirl_fashion. My snapchat friends were the first to know about the location I selected for my blog’s 3rd year anniversary brunch.  They saw first hand my Beyonce’s Formation tour experience and a NYC trip for theCurvycon.  Snaps showed L.A. for BlogHer and ATL for TCFStyleExpo and The MakeUp Show Chicago.  So be sure to follow on snapchat so you don’t miss any of the action.  thefatgirloffashion.com can be found on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter also.