Actor Sameera Reddy recalls her experience of body shaming, and reveals her journey to overcome self-doubt.

By Ariba Neyaz

Edited by Ruchika Shah

Our society stimulates the desire to own a perfect body by influencing our mindset about the true essence of beauty. Actor Sameera Reddy recently shared her personal experience of body shaming and also disclosed her journey to overcome self-doubt.

Opening up about the issue on her Instagram handle, Sameera shared a video narrating her personal struggle for being not-so-fair and attempts to maintain the ideal weight.

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I had a message form a mom who says she feels ‘fat’ ‘ugly’ and ‘not beautiful’ with her post baby fat . She said she looked at me and felt dejected . OMG!!! So here are my morning swelly eyes . No tricks no make up just me owning it! And I’m hoping that this enforces a positive spin on our own expectations of ourselves . I feel coming back to the public view in a way that I feel no pressure for my own mental health has helped me stay focused on being a good mother and a person who is self accepting that makes it a healthier space for all around me . Don’t dwell on what you are not and what you don’t have ! Let’s focus on the good 🙏🏼 we are all #imperfectlyperfect #loveyourself #justthewayyouare #keepingitreal

A post shared by Sameera Reddy (@reddysameera) on Jul 22, 2020 at 12:04am PDT

The actor felt obliged to make this video after she got a message from a mother of a one-year-old who felt ‘fat and ugly’ after watching one of Reddy’s Insta story. Advocating to move away from the cliché of ‘perfect beauty’, she said: These are the words that I fight. I fight against them. I try my best to be fearless and show you how exactly how it is. I don’t want people to follow me to compare. I grew up always being compared to my stick-thin sisters and then I went into the industry where I was compared to everybody”.

Sameera, who is a mother of two kids- Hans and Nyra, further said that all her efforts to look a certain way only ended up making her feel unhappy about herself.

Elaborating, she said: “Which is when I tried to lighten my skin, I used to do crazy things, like wear coloured lenses because I thought I needed that fair light-eyed look. I’d pad every part of my body which I didn’t feel was keeping up with the norms. I did everything which at the end of the day made me feel more crap about myself. That’s why today I work damn hard to fight against any type of body shaming”. Sameera, who has been away from arc lights for a long time now, has embraced motherhood.

Towards the end of the video, she pleaded her fans to stay positive and happy rather than worrying about their colour and body size. She added: “If you’re following me, promise me to just stay focus on your goals and we will all get there. I can angle myself and look really skinny right now or I can show how I got this double chin, or that I have a flab. But I’ll lose my weight in a good time, right now, stay happy. It’s okay, we will get there. Focus on happiness.”