Charli Howard is a size-6, plus-size model.
The British star started out as a straight-size model, and starved herself to meet industry standards. She made headlines in 2015 for a scathing Facebook post that slammed her modeling agency for dropping her because of her size.
“The more you force us to lose weight and be small, the more designers have to make clothes to fit our sizes, and the more young girls are being made ill,” she wrote at the time. “It's no longer an image I choose to represent.”
Howard left her straight-size agency and founded the All Woman Project, a nonprofit that champions body diversity.
These days, Howard is a happy and healthy size 6. However, she's still plus-size by industry standards.
"It does feel odd, being a US size six/eight and being considered a 'curve' model,” Howard told StyleCaster. "I'm only curvaceous in modeling terms, not in the real world."
Most fashion models maintain a US size 0 to 2 in order to fit runway sample sizes. Most meet the BMI criteria for anorexia, according to PLUS Model Magazine.
The average American woman, by contrast, wears a size 16.
"When I tell people I'm a curve model, a few people seem shocked," Howard revealed to StyleCaster. "I know that I'm not plus-size in real life, but I am as a model, and that has taken some getting used to."
As a seasoned model, Howard is used to the double standard when it comes to her body. But she worries how it will affect younger women.
"My only concern is that young girls might look at me and question their own sizes, thinking something like, 'If Charli’s considered curvy at a size six or eight, then what does that make me?'" she said.
Indeed, research shows that young women's body image suffers after being shown images of extremely thin models. The proliferation of both traditional and social media makes these images even more accessible to girls, at younger and younger ages.
Studies find some children express body image concerns as young as five years old.
Howard, however, has an inspiring attitude about judgements on her body: She simply ignores them.
"I'm often too small for some clients, and then too big for others. I sit right in the middle of the conventional model categories," she said. "So instead of fighting it, I just do my own thing."
