Megan Jayne Crabbe, Sophie Butler and Shahira Allen are leading lights when it comes to body acceptance, spreading the message to their combined 1.3 million followers that we don't need to be 'perfect' to appreciate ourselves. We can – and should - accept ourselves exactly as we are.
Feeling self-confident is key when it comes to happiness, but despite the stellar work Sophie, Megan and Shahira are doing in helping us learn to accept ourselves exactly as we are, new research from Dove revealed that two-thirds of us feel insecure about the appearance of our armpits, thanks to a combination of redness, dark marks, hyperpigmentation and shaving bumps, with that insecurity amping up in the summer.
As part of Dove's Arms Up campaign, HELLO! caught up with Megan, Shahira and Sophie for their personal stories of how they learned to accept their bodies. The Arms Up campaign shows a diverse group of people pose with their arms up in the air like they just don't care, designed to remind us that we are not alone in our insecurities.
"We’re taught that armpits must be shaven and rash-free, but that isn’t the reality for most women," says Megan. "Dove’s Arms Up Series is a beautiful way of bringing parts of ourselves we're taught to be ashamed of out into the light, where all of us deserve to be.
Read on for Megan, Shahira and Sophie's stories of self-acceptance, and prepare to feel inspired.
Megan Jayne Crabbe: 'I realised I'd been at war with my body for my entire life'
© Instagram"My body image issues began when I was five years old. I vividly remember comparing my body to other girls in primary school and feeling like mine was too big. I started dieting when I was around 10 and my relationship with food and movement became more and more disordered until I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at 14.
"Even after recovery, I still clung to the idea that the 'perfect' body would solve everything and make me, finally, good enough. It wasn't until I stumbled across the body positive movement online when I was 21 that things changed.
"I realised that I'd spent my entire life at war with my body, trying every diet, being every size between a UK4 and a UK18, and none of it had brought me the happiness that diet culture promised.
"I owed it to myself to try something different. I unfollowed unhealthy social accounts and instead filled my feed with body diversity and people accepting themselves. I read books such as The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, and Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls by Jes Baker.
"I quit crash diets and learned about intuitive eating. I got rid of my 'one-day' clothes. I detoxed my life from diet culture. It's been a gradual unlearning and I still find new things to question.
"One of the most important things we can all do for ourselves is decide that we deserve better. We deserve better than a lifetime of yoyo diets, body shame and trying to mould ourselves into impossible beauty standards.
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"We deserve to live full, vibrant, happy lives in the bodies we have, however they look. Once you realise that, there are endless resources to help with the unlearning, but you have to decide that you deserve to make peace with your body, and you do. You never should have been taught that there was anything wrong with it in the first place."
Shahira Allen: 'Realising I'd never meet the beauty standard helped me become more confident'
© Instagram"My journey to body acceptance is ongoing. There is no end, just new levels and I probably couldn’t pinpoint a beginning.
"Throughout my teenage years, I spent summer in a hideous brown hoodie. I was afraid to show my arms, armpits, skin, belly… you name it and that hoody was there to hide it. I remember thinking it made my body invisible, but as an adult I realise if I saw someone in a big brown hoodie in 27º heat I'd know they're feeling awful about themselves.
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"On the contrary, now I see bodies like mine nearly every day existing in confidence and joy. Having such a wonderful and supportive digital community has really helped me grow in confidence with my own body.
"They say that seeing is believing, but in my case seeing has been a huge part of normalising for me! The idea of a single beauty standard is far behind me and I - like most of my community - am now embracing the beauty in our differences.
"When I realised that I was probably the furthest 'category' of woman away from the female beauty standard in the west, my journey to body acceptable began.
"Everything I was watching growing up ingrained in me that I had to have a slim, hairless body, light skin and straight light-coloured hair to be attractive.
"It wasn’t even until I became an adult that I started to question who I was being 'attractive' for. At first I tried to fit into this beauty standard with dangerous beauty practices such as using toxic chemical relaxers to straighten my hair and even considering skin bleaching at a very young age.
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"What changed all of this is that I became really ill in my mid-20s and could no longer maintain my toxic beauty practices. When I finally recovered I had an afro, hairy armpits and a new understanding of what it meant to be beautiful.
"I became so grateful for my body and health that I started learning about my own beauty from scratch. To put this into a time perspective, I was 24 when I first saw my afro hair in my adult life.
"After realising I was never going to be the pin-up girl that society required, I turned my back on 'the beauty standard'.
"I started looking into beauty standards around the world including within my own culture and it was there that I realised my body type is celebrated.
"In some places around the world being plus size is a representation of wealth and having more body hair is a representation of strength. I accept my body as it is, but I’m learning new ways to love my body every day.
"If I were to give one piece of advice on how to accept ourselves, it would be to start thinking about the things you love about yourself.
"It could be a birthmark, the colour of your skin, the shape of your eyes, your fingernails… anything that you love about yourself and continue to remind yourself of that daily.
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"As time goes on, you’ll start noticing other things that you love about yourself. How you treat people, what outfits make you feel confident, the way your body hair makes you feel… keep celebrating all the things you love about yourself.
"I actually love looking at myself in the mirror now. It took practice but I’m proud of the person staring back at me. You can absolutely get there too!"
Sophie Butler: 'I realised my body was not an indicator of my worth'
"I really struggled with body acceptance when I was younger, particularly throughout my teens.
"I thought my negative thoughts were normal as I’d grown up surrounded by diet culture, but I felt a huge change after I suffered a spinal cord injury.
"I nearly died and became disabled at 21 and the whole time I was in hospital I kept thinking about all the things I wanted to do and the people I wanted to see. My body was now a vessel I had to repair and recover to allow me to do all those things. I stopped thinking of it as an indicator of my worth, and instead realised it was something that allowed me to live.
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"When I became disabled, I realised no matter how hard I tried, or how much I dieted, I was never going to fit the beauty standard anymore, because of the way the world largely views disabled bodies. I needed to work towards body neutrality and focus on strength and health.
"If you're struggling to accept yourself, think about your grandparents, think about all the memories they have and all the things they did in their lives.
"I think it’s really hard to imagine that that will be us one day, but when we get to that point, do you want to remember all the memories you made with people you love, or do you want to remember the way you looked on a night out or the size of your dress? When it comes to that point, the latter just feels so tedious, it helps us remember perspective."
To view Dove’s Arms Up collection and find out more about the Advanced Care collection which includes roll-ons and aerosols, head to Dove.com
