Ashley Graham shuns body image ideals with ‘cellulite’ Instagram photo

'Stop judging yourself, embrace the things that society has called 'ugly'', Graham urges followers

Ashley Graham (Getty)

The intense pressures placed upon women’s appearance has been steadily shunned by a growing number of body positivity activists entering the mainstream.

One of those women is Ashley Graham who as well as finding success in the modelling world, becoming the first size 16 model to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated, has also been outspoken on body confidence and campaigned for the end of the use of the term “plus size”.

She has amassed a loyal social media following through this and, on Thursday, shared a photo with her 1.9million Instagram followers encouraging them to embrace features which by societal standards are viewed as negative.

She captioned the photo, which has been liked 127,000 times: “A little cellulite never hurt nobody… Stop judging yourself, embrace the things that society has called ‘ugly’ #lovetheskinyourein #beautybeyondsize".

The 28-year-old also spoke about cellulite in her 2015 Ted talk on body confidence, which has been viewed on Youtube over 800,000 times. During the 10 minute speech, she said: “And cellulite I have not forgotten about you, I’m gonna choose to love you even though you wanna take over my whole bottom half but you’re a part of me”.

Graham who in the Ted talk also said she only “felt free once I realised I was never going to fit the narrow mould that society wanted me to fit in”, has featured in a number of high-profile campaigns and designed her own lingerie range for Addition Elle. Recently, she starred as Joe Jonas’ love interest in the music video for his band DNCE’s new single “Toothbrush”.