Simone Biles no longer wants to conform to common beauty standards

You know Simone Biles? The American Olympic athlete among the most awarded in history? He’s only 23, but he has spent virtually his entire life training and competing. He is therefore used to constantly confronting the results and standards dictated by others, but there is an aspect of his life in which he refuses to follow this rule: the one related to his physical appearance. In a letter posted on Twitter, the gymnast has indeed said to be tired of competing to have to respect certain standards of beauty.

“I don’t know why, but others think they can define your beauty according to their standards”, he wrote. An aspect that, for years, has always made her suffer. In fact, in several interviews she told how, since she was a child, she was bullied by her schoolmates who had given her the nickname of “swoldier” (derived from the union of two words, swollen and soldier) due to of its pronounced muscles. This type of comments, however, has not remained relegated to the school walls, but follows it constantly on social networks or in the competitions in which it participates, among the present public. Over time, as she tells herself, has learned to create a “shield against this type of externalization”, indeed to let them slip on her thinking about how the conformation of her body has allowed her to reach all the most important sporting goals in the world and that, without it, she would never have succeeded.

Obviously it was a long and difficult process: “I would be lying – he continued in his tweet – if I said that everything that has been said about my arms, legs, body or how a dress, a leotard or a bathing suit fits me. hurt me. ‘ But, finally, the awareness came: «Today, I say that I have stopped competing to achieve these beauty standards. Nobody should tell you or me how beauty should or shouldn’t be “. It is enough, therefore, to try to conform to a certain type of physicality, thinking that it can make us happy or serene.

The message received hundreds of comments online in which the Olympic athlete was thanked for sharing these words that can be of help to many girls who are in constant struggle with their bodies.

It’s true: Simone Biles is yet another celeb who takes a stand on this topic (luckily!) and sometimes these words can get lost in the flow of the many news we read every day. But like the drop that digs the stone, let’s make them ours and, following Simone’s example, let us remember every day what our body is capable of: what it managed to endure or how it transformed, made better, adapted to our life and how much it can still do.

It will certainly not be a more shapely thigh or a less toned belly to diminish its strength.

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