The reign of the Slim-Thick Influencer | Khadija Mbowe

it’s all fun and games until “slim thick” isn’t “in style” anymore. Don’t change your body for anyone but yourself.

It went from thigh gaps to thick thighs in a fairly short amount of time…so absurd. I try to not bog myself down with these ridiculously flippant beauty standards

As a white girl from England I had the "slim-thick" body type in my teens, during the early 2000's when heroin-chic was still in, and I was bullied relentlessly for it. I was constantly called fat, and I had a both boys and girls picking apart my body at school, to the point that I had a complex about it until only recently. I tried so hard to get a thigh gap but my body isn't built for that, I wore baggy clothes to try and hide it and would comfort eat to drown out my emotions to where I did become fat. I hate how body types become "trends", it's so strange to me, but at least in the past they had undergarments to change the shape of the body under clothes (padding was all the rage) but nowadays we're expected to change our real bodies and I think that's where the issue really lies.

I am half Korean so ethnically I have a tendency to have very little fat on my behind and all the fat ends up on my stomach. I am the exact opposite of slim-thick. I literally never see my body type in social media ever....I wouldn't mind myself as I was brought up in a family of artists and through drawing you see everyone as interesting visually and don't judge bodies. However I've been single for many years and so started online dating. I've had ten rejections on first dates in a row so I know it's related to how I look. I'm a bit fed up that the men in their 40's that I go on dates with are nowhere near the male beauty standards themselves but expect me to have a slim thick body and the face of a caucasian 25 year old instead of a mixed race 45 year old. When I don't fit their idealised image they just reject me. It makes me angry how social media has a negative effect on my life even when I feel secure and happy about my body myself.

"not typically found in nature", how PERFECT a phrase that is to describe these influencer standards.

I’m African too. When I was 120 pounds I was too skinny and sick looking. Now that I put on some happy weight, all the aunties do is point out that I got fat the second they see me. Toxic.

What kills me is that as a white girl who has the slim thick body type, I developed such terrible dysmorphia SOLELY because of my stomach. It’s not flat and perfect like an influencer, and it just makes me feel terrible, even though I’ve deleted all social media except for YouTube. It’s just such an issue honestly

in middle school, i would be told i had no butt too and a little later i did have one and then people were shocked and like "look at you now". gross how obsessed we can be with a person's body, especially at a young age.

I'm just waiting for the brick/pickle jar shape to be on trend, I'm ready for my time to shine

watching this a year after is interesting cuz right now people are taking out their bbls and the trend is shifting to just skinny. everyone is beautiful, just be yourself and do things only for yourself.

I seriously considered surgery for a while too, but here's what stopped me: I realised that, with invasive, dangerous surgeries, what I'd be telling myself, whatever way you cut it (heh), is that my value is so tied to my appearance that it's more important than my health, my comfort and my bank balance. And that is the opposite of what I as a woman want to be telling myself, f*ck that! We're worth so much more. I took that money and invested it into therapy and a diploma, best choice I ever made.

I watch a lot of historical dress YouTubers, and they talk about how the victorian era also had the slim thick body ideal, but the difference was that they didn't create the fiction that this body type was attainable through natural means if you weren't genetically blessed with that body type. There was no, "Oh I just worked out and naturally got the shape created by your corset, bust improver, and hip and bum pads." Everyone knew it was artificial, and there was much less pressure to maintain that shape when your were clothes off.

Rihanna once said: "If you want to have a butt, then you have a gut" and I live by that wisdom everyday EDIT: Before you write a humble-brag comment about how you have a "naturally flat stomach and big booty" please realize that this is JUST a funny quote with a swing to it. OF COURSE (!) there are exceptions. I personally think Rihanna just wanted to make people feel better about having a lil gut when the world is all about slim-thickness. So take it with a grain of salt Now can we please stop commenting on this?? My notifications are going mad lol

I feel like when the "masses" are getting BBLs the tide is going to turn to a new model of body being "in style" (ew, gross I know). The difference is the Kardashians etc will have the money to tweak their bodies again and there'll be a whole lot of people unhappy with what they have done because they never did it for themselves. I think we are heading for a skinny Bella Hadid/Kendall Jenner body being popular as low rise jeans and other Y2k trends come back in vogue

Her skin and complexion are just gorgeous

These topics do make me kinda weirdly sad tho cause it really just feels like the world is NEVER gonna be happy with women's bodies. If you're fat you have to lose weight, if you're skinny you have to gain weight cause "there's no meat on you" or sumn, if your butt is small you have to fix it, if your boobs aren't big you have to make them big, if your stomach ain't flat you have to work out and and go on a diet blah blah but if a woman goes ahead and gets plastic surgery she's suddenly called "fake"??? LIKE HOLY SHIT.

A friend said: "You either have a really big butt or you have lean long legs. But if you're inbetween, society doesn't value your body." And it feels like, if you're not either thick with curvy proportions, or super skinny, there's really no appreciation for your body.. society is messed up

I was a B cup in my twenties. Three pregnancies and thirty years later, I am a DD. The body will change in ways you would never guess as a 20 year old. Thank god I didn't have any augmentation in my 30s. I think people should really think before they do any procedures that adds to their bodies.

I’m watching this video a year later and… it’s honestly disturbing how fast the trend of the “perfect female body-type” changes. Everyday the skinny and tall model look is becoming increasingly popular, especially with Korean pop culture having a bigger influence on the western world. I’m so tired of our bodies being a trend

The greeting at an African family reunion is ALWAYS "you've gained so much weight!" or "why are you so skinny?"