Meet the body positive blogger fighting back against one-body-fits-all beauty standards

A body positive blogger has been busy fighting one-body-fits-all beauty standards one Instagram post at a time.

Meet Jacinda Pender. The 19-year-old self-confessed BoPo advocate has had enough of body-shaming.

If you scroll through her inspirational Instagram account, which has more than 13K followers, you’ll see outfit selfies typical of most teenagers, but mixed in amongst them are brutally honest and empowering revelations she’s stumbled across on her journey to self-love.

For years Jacinda struggled to love various parts of her partly because she never really saw black beauty being celebrated. So Jacinda decided to do something about it by encouraging young black people to appreciate their natural beauty and love their bodies just the way they are.

Though her she’s been posting her empowering posts for quite some time, one in particular is quickly going viral.

“It took me a while to love my beautiful natural lips for the longest,” she wrote alongside a close-up image of her lips.

“Now all I do is glorify my lips like they’re a powerful iconic being… I love how now I’m slowly discovering every flaw I once disliked and slowly loving it like my lips, my plus size body, everything… the road to self love is amazing and I find myself enjoying this little journey of refinement an eye opener!!!”

It isn’t the first time Jacinda has posted about her naturally full lips. She also shared another post about how though it’s now considered trendy to have big lips, she used to feel insecure about hers.

“When you realise having big lips is a trend but it took you a while to love your natural ones…” Jacinda wrote, alongside a collection of images of her lips.

“This post was about me a black girl loving her natural features and being constantly reminded by my white peers as a child that they weren’t beautiful,” she continued.

“This is about black girls who are constantly reminded that they aren’t beautiful, whether it be their natural kinky 4c hair or dark skin or big features. It’s my job as a black person to remind black children growing up that they are beautiful and valid and worthy,” she continued her empowering message.

And it isn’t just her lips that Jacinda posts about.

She’s also shared messages about stretch marks, tummy rolls, cellulite and hairy underarms, all with the aim of helping women embrace their bodies.

Speaking to Mic the inspiring teen said that though she still received body-shaming and racist comments on her posts, she would keep spreading her body positive love in the hope that other black women would be encouraged to love their features just as they are.

“The biggest weapon you can use against those who feel obligated to comment something negative about you is your confidence,” she said.

“Because trust me, they find it intimidating finding someone not self-loathing and letting people’s judgement not get to them.”

So young, but so very wise!

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