Indy100 Staff
Jun 06, 2017
Twitter/Screengrab/@ArtHopeAlly
Paris Harvey is 13 years old and from Gillingham, Kent, in the South East of England.
She just exhibited a huge amount of bravery by challenging her body-shaming bullies in public.
Since starting secondary school she has been mocked by classmates for her weight.
Paris suffers from a metabolic condition which results in a quick weight gain that she has to work harder to burn off. She was also born with a hip dysplasia, so her left leg is 1.5cm shorter than her other. As a result she has a slight limp.
She told the Daily Mail that these combined conditions led to bullies at her school mocking her for "walking like a penguin":
I got bullied in the past and after a while, you start to believe what people say. I became really insecure about how I looked.
I can be eating the same food as the next person but I gain weight. It’s not like I’m sitting at home all day eating crisps. But I felt like I shouldn’t have to explain myself.
To confront this, she wore a bathing suit to the beach and tweeted an image of herself in the outfit.
The tweet has received over 300,000 likes.
Paris said:
I feel like we should embrace who we are.
I’m not making myself a model but I wanted to show people that it doesn’t matter what size you are – you are born into that body.
HT BoredPanda
More: This woman silenced body-shaming trolls - in four amazing photos
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