Lizzo’s nude – and unedited – selfie is so important

A true queen, through and through.

Lizzo's new nude selfie - which is entirely unedited, by the way - is extremely important. Here's why. For the past few years, our social media timelines have become ever more populated with images of "real" bodies - bigger, longer, wider, shorter - bodies that we're not used to seeing in the media, bodies that we were told for a long time were unacceptable. And although this change has been more than welcome, many celebrities, influencers, and people of note have continued to alter their images - for their brand, for their work, or for their own self esteem. Most of the time, these edits go unnoticed but they're there, a consistent reminder that your skin could always be smoother, your teeth could always be whiter, your body could always look better. A long time body positivity advocate, Lizzo has always done a solid and tried to eradicate the stigma around, well, normal bodies. https://www.instagram.com/p/CN8hMtfs_gk/ She revealed this week, however, that she too tends to edit her photos to smooth her skin and "fix" her belly. Sharing a nude, and totally unedited, photo, she urged people to "get real." "WELCOME TO TAURUS SEASON," she wrote. "To celebrate I wanna give y’all this unedited selfie. Now normally I would fix my belly and smooth my skin but baby I wanted show u how I do it au natural. "I am excited to be partnering with Dove and the #DoveSelfEsteemProject which is helping to reverse the negative effects of social media and changing the conversation about beauty standards. Let’s get real y’all." Lizzo's post may be a piece of paid content, but the sentiment remains. As does the fact that the singer would likely be posting a similar photo with a similar message regardless of whether she was paid to do so. https://www.instagram.com/p/CN5F2vZMHIE/?utm_source=ig_embed   And sorry, look at the fringe. Incredible. Anyone who frequent's the 'Juice' singer's page will know that she's well into her body positivity and her celebration of bigger bodies. Calling her 'unapologetic' would be wrong - because what does she have to apologise for? - but her impact on the self esteem and self love on her millions of followers cannot be ignored. This post came after Lizzo took it upon herself to address some problematic and potentially triggering body shaming that was happening over on TikTok. A common trend on the social media platform is for medical health professionals to give their expert opinion on different conditions in a way that's easy to understand and, of course, easy to share. Lizzo, however, noticed that some users were taking this as an opportunity to make presumptions about people's health - purely because of what they look like.

"I just wanted to say I’ve seen a few of these videos about, you know, fat girls who eat healthy and stay active but can’t seem to lose weight," she said. "[It's important] just to show that every single body is different and how it functions is different."

"What really bothers me are the fake doctors in the comments saying: 'Oh, you have this' or 'You might have this condition'. No. What if I’m just fat? What if this is just my body?"

As part of Dove's new self-esteem project, we spoke to Yvonne Connolly about her own experience of body image issues following her horse riding accident in 2019. Disfiguring her face and nearly losing her sight, the TV presenter said that she was forced to remind herself of one thing that she always knew to be true: that her looks aren't everything, and that she's lucky to be in a body that is constantly working to keep her alive.