Canadian high diver shares empowering message about bloating after being asked if she was pregnant: 'Beautiful — bloat or no bloat!'
“I’m literally a professional athlete and I look like I’m four months along," said Molly Carlson.
Molly Carlson is sharing her experience being body shamed while in France for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The 25-year-old Canadian professional high diver took to social media to share her thoughts after a Paris local “bluntly asked” if she was pregnant.
Carlson, who is not competing in the games but acting as a content creator for NBC, shared a video of herself to Instagram wearing a silk floral dress and cupping her stomach.
“I am not pregnant, OK? “Carlson said. “Absolutely not. I’m a bloated girly. I get bloated so easily.”
The Fort Frances, Ont.-native admitted she was “so anxious” to wear the dress because of how her side profile and stomach would look.
“I get bloated so often, that at the end of the day I just wanted to remind you that bloating is normal,” she said. “I’m literally a professional athlete and I look like I’m 4 months along. But I’m having the best time of my life. You deserve to live your life and not care what people think about your body. Because it’s just a body, OK? You are so much more than your body.”
Carlson, who has been open about her history with eating disorders, wrote about the impact of the interaction in her caption. The Red Bull Cliff Diver said she’s in a “better place” with her body image that she knew “how to respond and not spiral.”
At 16, Carlson said she would have “anxiously laughed” and went home to “think of all the ways” she could change her body.
“Twenty five-year-old Molly can hear comments like this, politely said no, and go home and remind myself that I am worth so much more than what my body looks like,” she said. “I’m so proud of how I handled this and I hope this video helps someone out there that may be struggling with body image/bloating.”
Carlson received praise from fans who applauded her for normalizing how much bodies can change from bloating.
"Thank you for this Molly," someone wrote. "I struggle with bloating so much with endometriosis and I get asked that question at every occasion event unfortunately. So it’s nice to see you just embrace it as much as possible."
"Beautiful — bloat or no bloat!" another said.
"Thanks for sharing," a follower added. "I needed this! I have an ovarian cyst and I’m bloated looking three months pregnant. I’m so glad I’m not alone."
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