5 Female Athletes On How They Learned To Love Their Bodies

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“I was teased for looking like a boy.”

"I was taller than most of the boys when I was in elementary school." 

“I didn’t fill out tank tops the right way." 

These are just a few insecurities five top female athletes talk about in a new video for Cosmopolitan.com. The video features UFC fighter Jessica Eye, Olympic runners Sanya Richards-Ross and Natasha Hastings, Instagram fitness coach Massy Arias and Crossfit trainer Christmas Abbott discussing their relationships with their bodies and overcoming insecurities. 

"When I was younger I used to get ridiculed at school like I was too skinny," Hastings says. 

Arias talks about particular body image struggles as a Latina woman. "Being that I’m Latina, you know you’re supposed to have the big hips and the curves," she says. "Women come in different shapes and forms and we’re all beautiful, and I’m beautiful."

"We’re living in such an influential world nowadays that strong is now beautiful," Eye says. "And strength is confidence and strength is showing that you care about yourself."

Hastings, an Olympic gold medalist, talks about embracing her body as a "figure of strength" rather than striving towards a "perfect body." "We all have things that we love and then we all have things that we don’t," she says. "But I don’t think that you should shame yourself for not having the perfect body because no woman has the perfect body."  

As the conversation about female athletes and body image continues, we're happy to see a diverse range of women celebrate their bodies and what they can do. "I embrace who I am," Hastings says. "I'm not ashamed for being all woman, for being strong and being a figure of strength."

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