Robyn Lawley is a model with a message: Don't pay attention to the Internet's obsession with "thigh gaps."
A thigh gap, for the uninitiated, is when your thighs are so thin that they don't touch when you stand with your feet together. And lately, "thigh gap" is Internet shorthand for "ultimate thinness," Lawley explained on TODAY this morning.
"There's so many blogs, so many Instagrams, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and so many women of all ages comment below of how much they want this thigh gap and how much they need this thigh gap," Lawley told TODAY.
The plus-sized model got a surprise recently when a photo of hers turned up on a pro-thigh gap Facebook page. "Ninety percent of the comments were extremely derogatory," she says. "I got called 'pig,' 'hefty,' and 'too fat.'
"And, you know, I'm a normal girl, I'm a normal size," Lawley says.
The mean comments made her feel "horrible," which is one of the reasons she penned a sort of anti-thigh gap manifesto, published this week on the Daily Beast. In it, she writes:
"I want my thighs to be bigger and stronger. I want to run faster and swim longer. I suppose we all just want different things, but women have enough pressure as it is without the added burden of achieving a “thigh gap.” ... We have the power to change perceptions about body image—and we have the power to stop harmful trends like the “thigh gap.”
In other words: There are more important things to worry about than whether or not you've got a bit of chub rub going on every now and then. So carry on!