Woman Was Body-Shamed For Wearing A Bikini At The Beach, Shares An Important Message For All

Every day women across the globe are being shamed for various reasons. It’s either because of their clothing, profession, relationship status, their body type – the list continues.

Shelly Proebstel, a blogger from New Zealand, recently took on Facebook to share her story of body shaming via her blog ‘Bald and Beautiful‘.

She was at Mt Maunganui Beach near Tauranga when men “pointed and laughed” at her after she took off her sarong, revealing a bikini underneath.

There was a “split-second” when the 27-year old almost covered up.

“Then I reminded myself of all I have learnt on this journey, and I held my head high and stuck my belly out and wore that bikini with pride”, she said.

She even had a message for parents to teach their kids to look at another person the right way: “I urge you to teach them not to stare directly at a bigger stomach than they might be accustomed to seeing on TV or in society, but instead, to look at a persons face and into their eyes”.

“I urge you to teach them to be kind to all types of people, regardless of their outer appearance.”

Her message has struck a chord with thousands of people and people have been immensely supportive with their comments. The post has 23k likes on Facebook already.

Along with tonnes of positive responses, there were also many haters who continued to body-shame her, completely ignoring her message.

In another follow-up post, she responds to her haters:

“People are so quick to assume that a ‘fat’ person is that way because they ‘sit in the couch eating maccas’ (as someone quoted). They assume that they don’t exercise or eat nutritiously or try to make a change. To me, that just speaks ignorance of people when it comes to reasons behind weight gain. There are so many reasons a fit and healthy person (like myself) would gain weight – puberty, menopause, medication, thyroid issues, genetics, adulthood, slow metabolism, kidney or liver issues, allergies – and many more – Unrelated to food and exercise.”

She explained her lifestyle is full of healthy food, intense workouts, yoga, swims, and hikes.

“I’ll never change everyone’s opinion, but at least what I’m doing is making a difference for someone – and that makes it worth it,” she said.

Shelly’s blog is filled with body positivity and messages on self-love, and she strives to help people suffering from body image issues every day.

More power to her!