Nollywood actress, Chika Ike has revealed how traumatic growing up being skinny was to her but she is also shedding light that she grew to love her body the way it was.
In a detailed Instagram post, Chika shared how she was body shamed for being skinny and tall, but in all, she came out on top and later gained weight.
She wrote,
“I never liked my body growing up and was constantly bullied about it. I was so skinny and was the tallest in my class. I never looked forward to morning assembly because I’ll have to stand at the back of the class or class presentations to talk about “your best friend “ because I’ll be described as the thin girl.
I can remember eating all sorts to things to gain weight but nothing worked, I really craved to have some flesh on me. I was called all sorts of names like Lepa, thin girl and Agric chicken because I was so skinny and tall. So I started modeling as soon as I graduated from secondary school because modeling agents thought I had “the look”.
Today the reverse is the case, I’m on all sorts of diet programs and exercising every other day to keep the weight I’ve always wanted in check, I feel bad after licking ice cream or eating anything with high-calorie content because ill have to suffer in the gym. Growing up slim wasn’t cool now its cool.
The truth is you have to constantly love you, you can’t be cool to everyone, the world will always have a standard of what you should be, who you should be and how you should live your life. If you want to make changes or improvements let it not be because of pressure or people’s unconscious bias about you.Do it for you.
You should hold your pen and draw your life plan… Do you… Mind your business…..Run your race. Do not let anyone define you or rush you with their timeline. We all have different stories, journeys, and different clocks. You are you and that is your power!”
