Ready to start your own body image revolution?
Crowned the first Miss Plus Size America, Chenese Lewis is also an award-winning actress, comedian, a radio show host, and also a keynote speaker. A lively inspirational guest on The Body Image Revolution second series, Chenese organises and runs the biggest Love your Body Day Weekend event in the US, possibly in the world, in Hollywood, where she is the president of the local chapter of the National Organisation of Women, and is the spokesperson for the Binge Eating Disorders Association in Hollywood.
Chenese has never suffered from negative body image, having been raised in a family where she was always told how smart and beautiful she was, and so she always felt confident. Although she was aware that her body was ‘plus size’ and the world was focussed on approving much smaller body sizes, that disapproval simply never affected her. She has achieved everything she dreamed of for her own life and now teaches women and girls that their size is not a limit on what they can do in their lives, that the limit comes from what they believe and feel about themselves.
Living in Hollywood, the world capital of extremely thin and extremely made over, Chenese experiences the city as just like any other place. “What the world sees of Hollywood is not real life”, she says. “There are tons of happy curvy women, day to day life is just the same here as anywhere else.” What we see on the screen, she says, is just fantasy, and if we take it seriously as an example of how we should be, then we’re setting ourselves up for unhappiness.
Chenese is no stranger to body snarking, or controversy. To publicise Love Your Body Day, she teamed up with the event’s celebrity host, model Whitney Thompson, for a nude photo shoot. “It was a personal challenge for me, I was extremely nervous and I knew that not everyone would like it. And the response was beyond what she ever thought was going to happen. To hear more of the conversation with Chenese about the photos, the inspirational events she runs, her work with the Binge Eating Disorders Association, the NoH8 campaign, her opinion and experience of how black women’s body image issues are the same and different from other women, healthy lifestyle, and much much more, please visit www.thebodyimagerevolution.com.