Loose Women strip to their bikinis to show off real bodies and ‘stick two fingers up’ at air brushing
Panelists including Coleen Nolan, Stacey Soloman and Janet Street-Porter donned their best garments to be papped by legendary photographer Bryan Adams, who has previously taken snaps of The Queen and Kate Moss. Not bad company, eh?
The shots are all to promote Body Stories week on the lunchtime TV show, which will run all week on ITV One.
The campaign aims to encourage all women, whatever age or size, to celebrate their body and their ‘flaws’.
And the ladies have revealed all about their issues with body confidence in a bid to end the stigma.
Coleen Nolan said her issues stemmed from childhood.
She said: ‘I have a constant body battle. I often eat in ‘rebellion’. It goes back to when I was only a child and an uncle picked on me saying I was the ‘heavy one’.
What has stretch marks, cellulite and beautiful body positivity all over? A lot of people, for starters, but also Target’s latest swimwear campaign.
The retail giant’s ongoing efforts to be more inclusive now include a fabulous photoshoot showing off its new swim line. The images feature a range of bodies and, best of all, the photos are completely unretouched, Target said.
‘I know I’m not at the low weight I’ve got down to several times in the past but ultimately I’ve decided life’s too short to spend it on a yo-yo diet, I’ve made peace with the way my body looks and, quite frankly, I like cake just a little bit too much!‘I was scared before the shoot, but I totally embraced it and my body – particularly when it came to the solo shoot.’
Apprentice star Saira Khan said she wanted to take part in the stint because she had never done a bikini shoot.
She said: ‘Coming from a Muslim background you had to hide your body and could not expose your skin. I was brought up with the mentality to not draw attention to my body.‘I battled against my curves when I was younger as I didn’t want boys to notice me for being sexy – I was brought up to never bare my skin in front of men – it took me a long time not to feel guilty for wearing a dress or baring my arms.
Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley, the comedic mom duo known as I Mom So Hard, try on swimsuits and get honest about baby weight in their video “I Swimsuit Season So Hard,” which immediately went viral, racking up over 16 million views on Facebook in eight days.
In the humorous rant about swimsuits, Hensley says straight-out that she’s uncomfortable in a bathing suit.
“I do not feel confident in a swimsuit at all, but I’m not going to let that get in the way of me building a moat,” she jokes about typical mom duties at the beach. “I’m still 12 lbs. heavier than when I had my daughter and she’s 4. Can’t even call it baby weight anymore, just call it weight.”
Smedley blames her unease with beachwear on the suits on the market.
“Nothing’s going to make you feel worse about your body than the suits they make,” she says, as they show off their figures in a range of silly, ruffled and body-baring swimsuits.
Loose Women Editor, Sally Shelford, said: ‘Here at Loose Women we talk honestly and speak from the heart.
‘We are fed up of being pressured to get bikini ready and feeling bad about our bodies because they don’t live up to an unrealistic ‘perfect’ figure.
‘Instead, we wanted a campaign that celebrates the stories our bodies tell – from the babies our bodies have carried and nurtured, or the scars that say we’ve lived to tell a tale, they all make us unique and who we are.’