‘Feels Like A Smack In The Face’: Ashley Graham Gets Real About How Body Positivity Has Taken A Step Back
In an industry where the norm for women in fashion and Hollywood is to wear a size 0 to 4, Ashley Graham has broken barriers for years as a model and personality who’s considered to be plus-sized. Graham has been applauded for showing “a little cellulite” at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and going nude on social media in the name of body positivity. Now, she’s talking about the rise of skinny culture (again).
They say everything comes back, and as Y2K trends have cycled into the present day in recent years, so has the idealization of women being very thin. Another big factor here is the rise of people using GLP-1s for weight loss. Here’s what Ashley Graham had to say about it:
There was a pendulum that swung that was so body acceptance, positivity, everybody be who they want to be. And now it's going back this whole opposite way that feels like a smack in the face to the women who have felt like they've had a voice.
There have been a number of body positivity movements for women throughout history, but the most recent one came in the 2010s. It was a reaction to what happened in the 1990s and 2000s, where eating disorders and diet culture were rampant. Ashley Graham became one of the proponents of the body positivity movement – for example, she was the first size 16 model to be on Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue in 2016. As she added:
Article continues belowIt goes with the times—and GLP-1s are a time… I know that there are and there's gonna still be women who are considered plus size forever. This drug isn't going to wipe out a whole statistic of women.
While many celebrities wear sample sizes, when it comes to the general public, it’s been reported that 67% of American women wear a size 14 or higher, per Forbes. So while many women in media may be aspirational (or triggering) to women, Ashley Graham can make her audience feel seen. Here’s what else the body positivity advocate had to say about the current body type trends:
There's so many [plus size influencers and creators]…they're all over the place with their sizes and their proportions and how they look and how they're relatable. And to me, that's the coolest part about all of this. Seeing that these girls, who were raised on social media at such a young age are now coming in and they have a platform to say to the younger generation, ‘Be yourself, be who you want to be. If you have cellulite, who cares?’
The 38-year-old is a mother of three kids: 6-year-old Isaac and her 4-year-old twins, Malachi and Roman. Along with making these comments in her new profile with Marie Claire, Graham got candid about having varicose veins on her vagina after having her firstborn. When talking about her post-motherhood body, she said she’s “still trying” to “get over” that she doesn’t look like she did in her late 20s and early 30s and to “focus on the new girl” she sees in the mirror.
She also brought her trio of kids along on the cover shoot. Take a look:
Graham has done a lot for the plus-sized community aside from showing off her pregnancy stretch marks and rocking the sheer dress trend. She recently dropped a Spring collection with JCPenney for curvy women and was Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway last year. Also, if you look closely, you’ll see Ashley Graham make a cameo in the 2026 movie schedule entry, The Devil Wears Prada 2. We love her insight on dealing with the rise of skinny culture by remembering to be yourself.
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