The sickening comments about Camila Cabello's recent bikini photos shows how much we've been taught to hate our bodies

My heart sank when I saw some of the comments left on an article about Camila Cabello, who was pictured on a boat in Italy wearing a cute little orange string bikini and having what appeared to be a great time on holiday. She shouldn’t have even been pictured, of course – she should be left alone to chill without paparazzi hunting her down in the hopes of getting a bikini snap, but that’s another issue for another time. 

One comment read: ‘I just threw up in my mouth’, while another called her ‘hideous’. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only negative remarks; the article has garnered almost three thousand comments, with the majority centring around her appearance. 

The singer’s cellulite was a big topic (because WOW, god forbid a woman, let alone a *celebrity*, has cellulite, right?!), with many seemingly horrified that she dare not have perfectly smooth thighs – ‘Enough cellulite to insulate an average-sized home. Yuck,’ – read one particularly nasty comment. The obsession with the fact that this woman has cellulite is really wild to me because between 80 and 90 per cent of women have cellulite (but less than 10 per cent of men… Convenient?!). 

Cellulite is a totally normal part of a woman’s anatomy - it’s also normal if you don’t have it! Both absolutely fine - and something that is totally harmless… It wasn’t even given a word to define it until the 60s, when it became a new way for women to hate their bodies and companies saw a new way to make money (anti-cellulite cream, anyone?). The vast, vast majority of women have cellulite, so, please, can society quit the cries of horror whenever we happen to catch a glimpse?!

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Selena Gomez calls out bodyshamers' comments about her weight: 'I am perfect the way I am'

We are loving Selena's 2022 energy.

By Fiona Ward

The comments made me feel sick to my stomach. Body shaming has NEVER been acceptable, but especially now, in 2022 and with so much knowledge and education around the damage it does to body image and self-esteem, it feels particularly insidious that it’s still happening – and so overtly. 

And yes, I know that some people reading this will be thinking ‘oh, but it’s only a small amount of people who do that and they’re just bad people, ignore them’, but I don’t believe that's entirely true. Unfortunately, I think that some of those people commenting are people who are simply projecting because they feel bad about their own bodies. Because they’ve been *made* to feel bad about their own bodies and it hurts, so projecting that pain onto someone else almost feels… cathartic. It’s sad, but true - and I know because I often speak to women in my DMs who admit to doing so. 

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Why Kim Kardashian speaking proudly about her dramatic weight loss is so damaging

Kim's choices about her body are hers, and hers alone. But her toxic diet discourse has no place in 2022.

By Olivia Foster

So, I believe, we need to bring light to this body shaming, publicly condemn it and let women everywhere know that it’s not ok and it’s not true. Cellulite is absolutely fine, body fat is absolutely fine and women’s bodies (yes, every single one of them, no matter what shape or size) is fine. But you know what’s not fine? Commenting on other people’s bodies. It has to end. 

Also, let’s acknowledge the fact that Camila Cabello – and every other woman in the world – has more to them than how they look. We are all interesting, multi-faceted human beings whose worth does not lie with what number pops up when we step on the scales, how much body fat we have or how smooth the back of our legs are.  

Camila doesn’t owe anybody anything. She doesn’t owe a thin body, a cellulite-free body, or absolutely anything else to do with her appearance. And that goes for each and every one of us, too.