Sixtine Reveals the Models Who Shifted Her Mentality on Body Positivity and Self-Image

She credits two different women with helping her adopt a more positive outlook.

Sixtine.Ivan Apfel/Getty Images

American model Sixtine is a self-proclaimed “body neutrality advocate,” who uses her social media accounts to encourage other women to value their bodies for what they do rather than what they look like. But just because she has cultivated such an important platform and name for herself does not mean that she herself hasn’t struggled in the past.

When she was in high school, Sixtine herself suffered with an eating disorder, she said in a recent interview with Yahoo Life. It wasn’t until she followed models Ashley Graham, a fellow SI Swimsuit starl, and Iskra Lawrence, and saw their posts about body inclusivity that her mindset about her own body started to change. At the time, it made her realize that “maybe we don’t have to live like this,” she told the outlet. With Graham and Lawrence as her inspiration, she understood that it wasn’t necessary or good to encourage unhealthy habits in the pursuit of losing weight.

And it was their social media accounts that encouraged her own body positivity platform. “I just started posting every now and then something about body positivity or something about embracing myself. And [the posts] did so well that I was like, ‘O.K., let me let me lean into this a little bit,’” she told Yahoo Life of her body neutrality advocacy beginnings.

Doing away with negative thought patterns wasn’t an overnight process, but Sixtine found that with time she has gotten away from toxic diet culture entirely.

She may have once been inspired by Graham and Lawrence—and for good reason—but now, she is a inspirational force in her own right.

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