Body image and societal beauty standards can impact anyone. One of them is singer Camila Cabello, who has taken to Instagram to discuss her personal struggles with body image.
"Every time I've gone to this beach club in Miami I get papped - somehow when I check in paps know and get me in my bikini and every time I've felt super vulnerable and unprepared - I've worn bikinis that were to small and paid no mind to how I looked, then saw pictures online and comments and been so upset," she wrote.
Camila's open letter comes a day after she was photographed in a bikini during an afternoon at the beach in Miami, Fla.
She further revealed how she had to remind herself that it was society's thoughts and not her when the negative comments impacted her self-esteem.
Camila added, "I reminded myself when it impacted my self-esteem that I was thinking the culture's thoughts and not my own. A culture who has gotten so used to an image of what a 'healthy' woman's body looks like that is completely not real for a lot of women."
"Photoshop, restrictive eating, over exercising, and choosing angles that make our bodies look different than how they are in the moment and in their natural form, when we take a deep breath, when we eat a meal, when we allow the waves to tussle us around. I remind myself of this, listen to podcasts on intuitive eating, follow women who accept their cellulite, stretch marks, bellies , bloating, and weight fluctuations... and still. I'm a single woman in her 20s in the middle of a s-- ton of promo and I want to feel like I look 'good,'" Camila continued.
Camila also talked about how she made sure not to eat anything too heavy today before going to the beach.
"Today I got a new bikini, a whole f-kin cute outfit, put lip gloss on, and didn't eat anything too heavy before going in the OCEAN cause I knew it was gonna be basically a whole photo shoot. I held my core so tight my abs hurt and didn't breathe and barely smiled and was so self conscious of where the paps were the whole time i couldn't let go and relax and do what we're meant to do when we go out into nature. I tried to pretend they weren't there but I couldn't and I held my breath from my sun chair to the ocean," she wrote.
The 'Bam Bam' singer then described seeing children playing at the beach with "no self consciousness" and noted that her goal was to "get back to feeling like 7 year old me on the beach" -- "happy, silly, breathing, pretending to be a mermaid, FREE."
Earlier this month, Camila wrote an open letter about the "yearning feeling of belonging."
( With inputs from ANI )
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