WATCH ABOVE: Vancouver model Ruby Roxx took on a so-called body-shaming site by calling out the bullies.
A Vancouver plus-size model is speaking out about body shaming after she recently discovered that a photo of her had been retouched to make her appear thinner.
It was posted to an online harassment Facebook page targeting plus-size women, and it turns out she was not alone.
Ruby Roxx is a model and the editor-in-chief of Beauty Mark Magazine. She says she found out her image had been retouched and posted on a Facebook page called ‘Project Harpoon’. This Internet group takes photos of plus-size models, people and actresses and Photoshops them to make them appear thinner. It has since been taken down.
“It was very poorly done, they made me look very unnatural for my body frame,” says Roxx. “I’m not naturally a very slim person, not everyone is, not everyone is meant to be. So for me to look like that was completely unnatural.”
She says the comments and the captions on the photos were very insulting and hurtful. “Being in the industry, being in the modelling industry, I’m told a lot of negative comments all the time, so I try not to take it too personally,” says Roxx, “but it’s something that’s never really easy to hear.”
This story started getting attention when Roxx posted an entry on her blog about what happened.
The reason I fight you is for the thousands of women out there who aren’t where I am yet. Who don’t love their bodies. Some of the girls you photoshopped weren’t models or celebrities, but just everyday girls. They might not have confidence, but they posted that photo on a day they felt good about themselves, and you BUTCHERED it with your atrocious photoshopping, and made them feel bad.
Roxx says she is not sure why people would do something like this. “Nobody can tell you whether you’re healthy or not, other than a medical professional,” she says. “Nobody on the street can tell you, your family, your friends and certainly not somebody hiding behind a computer screen.”
“Being a certain size and your weight does not determine your health. It’s a general stance but it’s not the final say in your health.”
WATCH: Ruby Roxx speaks to Sonia Sunger about what happened on BC1
Roxx says she wants to take what happened and turn it in to a positive experience. “Cyberbulling isn’t going to go away,” she says. “If I ignore it, then I feel like I’m part of the problem and so I need to speak up about it and call these people out.”
People have reached out to Roxx to thank her for speaking out and bringing attention to this issue. She says she is not anti-Photoshop, but it should not be used to make someone look like a different person.
“When you see images of models in magazines, those models don’t even look like that,” she says. “I wish I looked like I do in magazines all the time. I don’t even look like that all the time. It’s a false reality and it’s an idealistic body image and the way they were Photoshopping these images, it wasn’t even realistic.”
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