Social media has given everyone a voice, and some seem to take pleasure in criticizing others for their body size. And it’s not just people who are overweight that are getting the brunt of the criticism as supermodel Gigi Hadid became a target after she walked the runway during New York Fashion Week. It didn’t take long for the negative feedback to begin, with people questioning the model’s weight fluctuations and some even suggesting that Hadid might even be on drugs, but the 22-year-old beauty, who was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease in 2014, spoke up for herself , taking to Twitter to put the shamers in their places.
Writing to her over 8 million followers, Hadid said she’d been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease when she was only 17. According to womenshealth.gov, Hashimoto’s is “an autoimmune disease that damages the thyroid gland. It is the most common cause of hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid). If left untreated, hypothyroidism can cause problems getting pregnant and problems during pregnancy. Symptoms of hypothyroidism include fatigue, weight gain, depression, and joint pain.” Even after treatment with the proper medication, thyroid hormone levels can fluctuate and require adjustment of the medication.
Hadid wrote that she’s been properly medicated over the years and even took part in a holistic medical trial to help balance her thyroid levels. Before being called too skinny, she’d been called too big for the industry, and Hadid said that her size was due to water retention and inflammation. The model admitted that she doesn’t want to be as skinny as she is, but that she feels healthier now and that she’s still “learning and growing with her body everyday.”
“I may be ‘too skinny’ for u, honestly this skinny isn’t what I want to be, but I feel healthier internally and am still learning and growing with my body everyday, as everyone is.”
She made it clear that she shouldn’t have to explain the way her body looks and that she wouldn’t further explain it. She summed up her Twitter explosion by encouraging everyone to have more empathy because “you never really know the whole story” and added a few more words of wisdom for her followers.
“Use your energy to lift those that you admire rather than be cruel to those u don’t.”
