As a fierce advocate for appreciating our bodies just as they are, she’s built a supportive online community that celebrates all body types. Through her inspiring “I Weigh” movement, Jameela shifts the focus from weight to personal worth, encouraging everyone to celebrate what truly matters in life.

She’s not afraid to call out celebrities who push unrealistic beauty standards, shining a light on the link between body image and mental health. Her work motivates countless others to embrace their authentic selves and confront damaging narratives about body image.

And of course, she starred in our documentary, Embrace, showcasing her commitment to this life-changing cause! Here’s a snapshot of our inspiring chat during the filming …

How did you feel about your body when you were younger?  

I wasn’t at all aware of my body until I was about eleven years old. I loved my body. I had a big, big belly and I thought it was the best thing in the world, and I would stick it out as much as I could, proudly. I would put my hands on the back of my hips to try and push my belly out just because I was so proud of it, and I wanted everyone to see it.

When did this change? 

And then when I was about eleven, we had a maths teacher who wanted to teach us how to collect information for pie charts and stuff, and so she weighed all of the girls in the class.

And when she weighed me, I was not only the tallest girl in the class and therefore literally the biggest, but I was the heaviest girl in the class — and I didn’t think anything of it until everyone started laughing at me and she put my name at the sort of top of the board as the heaviest girl. And there was just ridicule from that day on.

How did this make you feel? 

Overnight, I developed a very firm understanding that there’s a social value in weighing less, in taking up less space.

It was a very quick descent into what became a twenty-year obsession with my body and with food and it robbed me of my entire youth. When I got older, I started to really understand the industry at large, the world at large, how this all plays into the same thing. 

How does the media influence this? 

How it works is that you have a very small group of very wealthy people, who make money when we feel sad, because when we feel sad is when we are more likely to go out and buy things. And they teach us via the magazines, via TikTok, via TV shows that we are broken. 

We aren’t broken. We’re fine. We’re all supposed to look different, and they know that, which is why they are deliberately setting this one impossible standard so that we will spend all of our money and all of our time trying to achieve that, rather than just focussing on being happy, because happy people don’t buy stuff so much. 

And so, when you start to really understand that you’re like, ‘Well, then maybe I can decide who’s going to become famous, which products are going to become popular, what I’m going to see every day in my feed, what movies are going to show me, what media is going to show me.’

And that’s why we’re now seeing a change, because people are now starting to speak up and get loud and they’re saying, ‘We want more representation.’ Boom, we have Lizzo. We made Lizzo popular. She became popular online, on the internet, because everyone followed her, and they listened to her music, and they supported her and they demanded seeing her at festivals and so she was booked.

Another example is Black Panther, the Marvel movie. We wanted more representation — they gave us representation. And then we went out and we supported that film, and it became one of the most successful films of all time.

They are nothing without us. They can’t sell anything or anyone without our approval. So, we just have to start only approving of the things that make us feel good … of the people who make us feel good.

What needs to change? 

Last week it was announced that Instagram and Facebook were going to make it impossible for minors, anyone under eighteen, to be able to even see any adverts for detox or diet products or any kind of cosmetic surgery.

You know, there are so many adverts for those kinds of procedures that are just openly sold to young people and children on social media. And Instagram and Facebook have decided to clamp down on that, and that is, in no small part I think, due to the fact that I turned up at their offices six months ago with a petition that I had 250,000 signatures for in just three days. Basically, anyone who’s doing anything to hurt the mental health and emotional health of young people in the world, I will find you and come after you. 

Who can help create this change? 

I think when people see me as an activist, they just think I’m doing all of this by myself and I’m just strong and I’m out there. But what’s amazing about activism is that you very quickly find other people. You find friends. You never do this alone. No one does this alone. 

I think the word influencer has been something that we associate with Instagram and TikTok now, so we need to take back that word and remember that everyone has the power to change something.

You could change just one person’s life and that’s enough, or you can go on and change millions.

If we all take it upon ourselves to just change our environment just directly around us, the world would change, within months. We have to stop feeling like only certain individuals have the power or the strength to do it. The strength is in the numbers, and we have to remember forever that we have the power.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to kids today? 

Block, mute, delete, repeat. Anything or anyone that makes me feel bad [on social media], they’re gone.

For more on the amazing things Jameela is doing, head to her Instagram page.