Modeling is a tough business, especially when it comes to the industry's unreasonable body image standards. Gigi Hadid knew that going in and she stood her ground from the second she set foot into her modeling agency.
"I've kinda had an easy time with the whole body image thing," she tells E! News. "Just because from the second I walked into IMG [her agency], I was like, 'This is what I wanna do with my career, but the one thing is that I'm not gonna lose a certain amount of weight. I'm not gonna be extremely skinny.' I just don't want to do that."
Let's face it, it's a huge accomplishment for any of us to be able to say 'this is my body, flaws and all and I don't really care if you like it or not.' So, let's just take a second to appreciate how amazing it is that Gigi has that attitude. Beyond that, we have mad respect for the fact that she said it when she was just an aspiring model, knowing that it could have been career suicide.
Knowing that, Gigi owned it her own standard of beauty, not what the industry told her was beautiful and she just let the chips fall where they may. "I've always been an athlete. I've always had a certain body type that I've always been happy with and I didn't wanna let that go for a career," she continued. "You kind of have to know your goals and know that if you're not right for certain jobs, then you shouldn't be doing them. If my body type isn't right for 'this' and they want me to change, then they can find another girl in that sense."
Of course, she does do things that make HER feel good, like going on a health kick and boxing every day before the Victoria's Secret show, which just helped her feel her best for that particular event, whether she lost any weight or put on a few pounds of muscle, she felt good and that was all that mattered. Not any different than an athlete training for a big match - just be your best and the rest will sort itself out.