SHAREEFA J, 26:
‘I’M PLUS-SIZE’
It’s been a long journey from insecure
to body proud for Shareefa‘I USED TO feel terrible
about my body. I went to
drama school and I was
expected to be a certain size.
My teachers would always
encourage me to be thinner.
I actually got sick once and
lost loads of water weight, so
when I went back to college,
they said, “You look fabulous”,
but actually I was just really
poorly. I had a bad sense of
self and a really poor view
of myself; I always wanted
to be smaller. And the more
weight I lost, the worse I felt.
It was only after I started
modelling that I started to
actually accept my body. I
was surrounded by women
who looked like me and I
started to think, Wow, I look
OK, I look good. It was so nice
to hear other people say, “It’s
so refreshing to see a curvy
woman because I am one, and
my mum looks like this too.”
We come in different shapes
and sizes and that’s beautiful.
A lot of assumptions are
made about curvy women;
that we’re lazy, greedy and
sit around and just eat loads
of chocolate bars, which, youknow, sometimes I do. But
at the same time, I exercise,
I eat well most of the time
and I look after myself.
I get a lot of trolling on
my Instagram, but I try not
to pay much attention to it.
There are a lot of people who
say, “You have heart disease,
you have diabetes, you’re
obviously ill because you
don’t have abs”, but that’s
not true. You get one body
and if you’re lucky enough to
have a good body that works,
you should be grateful for it.
As long as you’re healthy, who
cares if you have two or threeor four extra rolls? There
is so much more to life than
worrying about what other
people think of me, about how
I look in this and how I look
in that. It doesn’t matter what
people think of me as long as
I am a good person and I’m
happy with how I am. Why
don’t you just spend a little
bit of time looking at all the
things you love about your
self? As soon as you start
focusing on the things that
you love, you’re going to be
a happier person. Promise.’
Follow Shareefa’s Instagram
@shareefa_j.