Cosmopolitan’s Body Positivity February 2021 Cover Stars

Two writers at Cosmopolitan Magazine, Lottie Lumsden and Annabelle Lee spoke to 11 beautiful women who began working on their bodies to achieve their own standards of health rather than running after the society’s narrative of achieving size zero waists, thigh gaps, and concave stomachs. These women did not always work on their own fitness and instead let society dictate how they dressed, what they put in their bodies, and how they treated their bodies. With the latest Cosmopolitan issue of February 2021, 11 women grace the multiple covers of the magazine for next month, celebrating identity, health, and wellness of the body and mind as they work on themselves and define their own fitness narratives.

• The Confidence Corner’s Callie Thorpe, an Instagram fitness influencer, understands: “Our bodies don’t fit the narrative” as she laughs on one of the covers wearing fitness gear. She used to suffer from eating disorders due to being plus sized, but now helps other women feel comfortable in their own skins.
• Olympics bound athlete Morgan Lake faced a lot of self doubts and self comparisons against others in her sports field, but now she says, “I focus on what my body can do, not how it looks” and that is probably going to be our mantra from now onwards!
• Bound to a wheelchair since a weightlifting accident in July 2017, Sophie Butler has returned to the gym and continued working on herself, not letting disability stop her: “It’s about unlearning the prejudices Disabled bodies face. All the insecurities are just a pretext from society.”
• Professional boxer, Simran Kaur, took up the sport as a hobby at age 12 and now says of it, “Boxing has helped me grow in confidence.” The magazine writes, however, that following the interview, Kaur retired from her beloved sport due to medical issues.

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• Professional rugby player and personal trainer, Vicky Fleetwood began building her strength as a teenager when she was playing for England’s U20 team, which led to bullying based on her muscularity. But she learnt over time that her body was built for a purpose and accepted it: “I’ve worked hard for my muscular body.”
• At size 16, Jada Sezer has learnt to celebrate her body: “People have said, ‘You’re fat, you can’t be fit.’” She is working to promote the presence of cellulite and eliminate the misconception that fat equates to lack of health, fitness and wellness, while also promoting the effect mental health plays in this.
• As a person who has struggled with an eating disorder, Alex Light continues to post on Instagram in her underwear: “It’s taken me a long time to feel good in my body.” She still receives trolling, bullying comments on her content, but she says that those comments have “fast-tracked” her to “thick skin”.
• Nelly London is a body-confidence influencer who has been told on a reposted photograph of her that her fat is abnormal and that she requires surgery. However, the fact that a page as big as Gymshark was promoting her and her fitness journey was the positive side of things she accepted, saying: “My relationship with my body is always improving.”
• A paralympic swimmer with the achondroplasia genetic disorder, Ellie Simmonds has come to realize the importance of the long hours of her training, not just for the end result of gold medals but also as meditative exercise: “My body has won me gold medals.”
• With over 455k Instagram followers, Jessamyn Stanley is a plus sized yoga teacher, author and podcaster, but she continues to receive body shaming alongside comments on being a black woman in the industry. Yet, she learnt to accept herself and did not change herself: “For me, that’s been very therapeutic.”
• Melissa Alcantra couldn’t even do a jumping jack when she entered the fitness industry and had been taking diet pills and starving herself for a long time. Eventually, she sculpted the body she wanted but also learnt that she would have to work on mental health alongside physical fitness: “I realised it wasn’t the actual working out, it was the decision to do something good for myself.”

You can read the full article here and contact us or leave a comment below about your own health and fitness journey.

Credit: Rachell Smith, Celeste Sloman/Redux/Eyevine, Alice Cowling