It’s pretty much a universal truth that being a teenage girl is hard. But being the teenage daughter of a supermodel? As Christie Brinkley's daughters Alexa Ray and Sailor Lee admit, there's some serious emotional baggage involved—especially when it comes to body-image.
The now grown-up girls recently posed for the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue with their mother, looking every bit as beautiful and confident as Christie herself. But in a pair of Instagram posts, the supermodels-in-training admitted growing up in their gorgeous mother’s shadow wasn’t always easy, and it took them a long time to learn to love their bodies they way they are.
Captioning a behind-the-scenes photo from the shoot, 18-year-old Sailor Lee wrote,
"I’ve had issues with my body image since before I can even remember. I grew up not loving how I looked and felt held back because of it….My body and I have been through it all."
After years of struggling with her body image, Sailor explains, she’s finally learned to accept and respect herself. She continues,
“I now have grown to know that my body is worthy of so many great things. I don’t need to be a size 0 to believe in myself. My body carries me each and every day, it holds what makes me healthy and strong, it bends and shakes it runs and it CHANGES. That is okay, and that is beautiful."
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Brinkley’s eldest daughter, Alexa Ray, used her behind-the-scenes photo as a means to inspire other women to love and respect themselves. She captioned her picture,
"Let’s STOP degrading and START celebrating ourselves and others, from both the inside AND out. There’s far too much degradation, competition, insecurity and unhealthy standards associated with women and their bodies—particularly on social media. As a conscious society, it’s up to us to flip this negativity on its head.”
The 31-year-old added that while she doesn’t have a “flat tummy” or “cellulite-free thighs,” it doesn’t matter to her and it shouldn’t to anyone else. What matters, she writes, “is how YOU feel about yourself….we are all perfect, just the way we are.”
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More on body-image:
The sisters’ inspiring posts got a lot of love on Instagram, racking up more than 3,000 likes each, along with countless comments of support from girls and women who’ve gone through similar body-image issues. We’ve all been there at one time or another; self-doubt is sometimes unavoidable. But if the daughters of a world-famous supermodel can learn to overcome their insecurities, well, then there’s hope for the rest of us yet.
Watch: How One Plus-Size Model Learned to Love Her Body
