Who knew I had anything in common with a swimsuit cover model?

I spoke to Chan earlier this week and asked her why she decided to share those photos and that message. She tells me, “because that's the reality.” It seems simple enough, but I found Chan’s words particularly powerful because as most human beings can relate, I have had my share of body image struggles.

Fat shaming or any other kind of body shaming may be a big no-no nowadays (I mean, it’s never been okay, but now people are actually being called out for it), but for those of us who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s, it was fairly common to watch a film or TV show in which a character (typically female) was teased, made fun of, or otherwise bullied for how they looked—especially if they weren’t as thin as a rail.

Even when we knew and understood that everybody is built differently and that no two bodies are the same, those images of super-skinny actresses, musicians and models we were constantly bombarded with still made it difficult to be happy with the bodies we were inhabiting.

And for us Asian American girls at that time—when media representation was already sparse—whenever we did see someone who looked like us on screen, she was more often than not petite and slender. There are no inherent problems with petite and slender girls and women, but when that’s all you see represented, it does start to mess with your head and how you see yourself if you don’t fit the description.

At 5 feet, 10 inches tall, Chan, who is half Chinese and half Armenian, is very much the opposite of petite. And the last time she went to China, she was looking for size 7X in clothing stores. In addition, at one point, someone even came up to her and put her hand on Chan’s belly and smiled, essentially telling her “congratulations”—even though Chan wasn’t pregnant.

At 5 feet (and half an inch, on a good day), I actually am petite. But based on my height, I’m considered overweight. If you look solely at my body mass index, which is your weight in kilograms divided by your height squared in meters (and derived from a solely white, European sampling, but that’s a whole other thing), I’m borderline obese. In reality, I’m not. I typically fit into a women’s medium or large and jump between a size eight and 10. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with any of this, but for a long time, I often felt the need to be thinner and lose weight.

It took some time, but I can say that in recent years, I’ve finally come to accept my physical attributes. I’m okay with having a belly and thick thighs that often force me to go up a pant size, and a chest that has me avoiding button-up tops. I’ve always had pretty big, muscular calves, but as a former gymnast whose forte was tumbling, this is one part of my body I’ve always been proud of—even if it makes shopping for boots a pain.

But just because I’m okay with my body now and don’t buy into the bullsh*t being sold to us in the media, doesn’t mean those insecurities don’t still occasionally creep up on me. I don’t think those feelings will ever completely disappear.

But just because I’m okay with my body now and don’t buy into the bullsh*t being sold to us in the media, doesn’t mean those insecurities don’t still occasionally creep up on me. I don’t think those feelings will ever completely disappear. Sometimes I still can’t help but take up a  favorite Asian parent pastime and compare myself to others. More often, however, I’m staring at myself in the mirror, pinching at my belly fat, sucking in my stomach and telling myself I should go on a diet.

“Listen, it will be forever,” Chan tells me about dealing with body image issues—even after we’ve come to love our bodies. “Because we are just individual people up against one of the most massive industries in the world, which is made to make us feel like we have things physically wrong with us, so that we buy products to fix those things. In essence, we don't stand a chance. So what we have to do is find messaging and people we do align with, work every single day on our own mental health and body image, and be vulnerable about it, in order to connect with each other and uplift us as a community.”

For Chan—who as a teen, was often asked if she was going to lose weight, or when she would get a boyfriend—it took her coming out as a lesbian and being in the female gaze for her to get rid of those “last few nagging, nasty body image thoughts.” When she’s vibing with someone, she would never start thinking she wasn’t into them anymore because “her bum is flatter than the models in the magazines.” “When I put that logic on myself, I'm relieved. I feel incredibly relieved,” she says. “So that's what I've been thinking about lately, in terms of body image. I'm very actively going through it. I don't really have the perfect answer, but that's how I can best describe it.”

When I ask Chan what message she wants to send young people regarding body image, she says, it’s about being authentically yourself. “I don't regret not arriving at myself sooner, but I certainly hope for others that they're able to,” she says. “I think it's really emotional and special that everything I get to celebrate so publicly now is about being a size 14 model, and celebrating my pride on a world stage. The sooner that you're able to really accept and love yourself, the sooner that your life will take its perfect form.”