Overweight Blogger Jenny Trout Wears A Bikini And Inspires Thousands!

Jenny Trout, an author, blogger, and a mother of two recently wrote a blog post on the Huffington Post about her experience wearing a bikini earlier this summer. In the blog Jenny talks about how “nothing happened” even after she wore the bikini atop her less than perfect body. The post has since then gone viral.

Trout, who is not your traditional, beauty queen with the perfect bikini body, also happens to be overweight. As any normal person would do, Jenny Trout announced her decision to don the bikini to some of her friends and acquaintances. She announced the same on her personal blog as well. The immediate reaction was of happiness. Many of them automatically assumed Jenny was planning to lose weight first before she wears the bikini. The decision to wear the Bikini was a part of her New Year resolutions for 2014 – and was number four on her list.

“What a great goal! What are you doing? Weight Watchers? Jenny Craig? Are you going vegan? Paleo? Are you having the surgery?” Jenny’s friends responded.

Trout then made a slight clarification. She told them she had no plans to lose weight.

“I said I was going to wear a bikini. I didn’t say I was going to lose weight,” Jenny writes.

Her words were met with shock. There were looks of disbelief from most of them. You know, the traditional ‘How can a fat woman dare to wear a bikini look’. Jenny Trout was however determined.

According to Jenny, none of her friends and acquaintances to whom she told about her bikini plan had the guts to tell her on the face that her decision to wear a bikini would “offend” their eyes. None of them admitted that they would not like to see the overweight Jenny Trout in a bikini because it didn’t fit well with their aesthetic preference – a preference which according to Jenny “is shaped by our cultural perceptions of what is and isn’t beautiful.”

Sure enough, a few months after her announcement, Jenny did wear the bikini. She not only wore the “fatkini” as, she called it, but also blogged about it and posed for a few photos in the bikini which she later posted on Facebook.

She added another photo as well…

She re-blogged about it on The Huffington Post which went viral and received over 100k likes in a matter of a few days. In the blog Jenny wrote how “nothing changed” after she wore the two-piece bikini. She wrote;

“In late June, on a cold beach in Copper Harbor, Michigan, I wore my bikini. Nothing happened. The families spending the day at Hunter’s Point did not flee in terror for fear of catching whatever horrible health problems bikinis cause.”

Jenny then went on to add how the topic of fat bodies and how we clothe them has everything to do with what the society expects from women and “what we’ve been told by the fashion industry and the value we place on “perfect” bodies.”

After the post went viral, Jenny was inundated with email and comments from people who told her how her blog post had inspired them. Many people told Trout they’re going to wear shorts, or go sleeveless, or try a two-piece or any bathing suit after they read her piece.

Jenny seems to be very happy about her blog post being able to positively affect the lives of thousands of people. What do you think about Jenny Trout and her decision to wear the bikini? Would you do something on the same lines?

[Images Via Bronwyn Green, Chris McGuire/Jenny Trout]