Lili Reinhart says she’s struggling with her body image: 'It's challenging to look at your body with love instead of criticism'

Lili Reinhart of 'Riverdale' fame explained that she is struggling with her body image in a candid Instagram Story. (Photo: Chris Delmas / Getty Images)
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Lili Reinhart reveals that she is struggling to love the skin she is in.

The Riverdale star, who in 2020 released her debut poetry book Swimming Lessons, shared Cleo Wade’s poem "A Love Note to My Body" on her Instagram Story, along with a vulnerable message about her body image issues.

"I've been struggling with obsessive thoughts about my body/weight the last few months and it's gotten pretty severe in the last week," Reinhart explained. "So I want to take a moment to be vulnerable and share this in the hope that any of you who are also struggling don't feel so alone."

She continued, writing that "it’s challenging to look at your body with love instead of criticism" and that it’s a practice she is “still learning.”

The actress, who in 2020 used her Instagram Story to come out as a “proud bisexual woman” to fans, admitted that the entertainment industry has caused her to change the way she views her own body.

"I didn't think being in this industry, that is so obsessed with women's bodies and weights, could ever mess with my own body acceptance and positivity," she wrote. "But it has. I wish I hadn't grown up in a time where the media worshipped only one size of women."

Reinhart, who is 25, also detailed feeling as though her body had "betrayed" her by changing and looking different than it did when she was 20, and said she was tired of feeling like she was "inconvenient" because she was not a "sample size."

She concluded her post by reminding her followers that they are not alone for feeling insecure.

"I know I'm not alone in this toxic way of thinking about my body. And it's heartbreaking that this feeling is understood by so many of us," she shared. "Let's continue to talk about it. Normalize it. Empathize with others. Show compassion and kindness."

Reinhart has long been outspoken about the struggle to live up to rigid body standards. In 2018, she spoke at the Glamour Women of the Year summit about the very issue.

"I've been quietly trying to navigate my fluctuating weight and I’ve faced criticism in the past for talking about my body image," she said. "People told me that I didn’t have the right to talk about being self-conscious about my body because I was skinny. And I understand how it seems inappropriate for someone who is average size to talk about problems with weight gain. But, my point is, I didn’t think anything was wrong with my body until I was in an industry that rewards and praises people for having a smaller waist than I will ever have."

The following year, she told Glamour UK that she was disheartened to see people photoshopping their bodies to fit a certain look.

“This is my body and we’re told that it should fit certain proportions,” she told the outlet. “There’s such a disgusting problem right now with people photoshopping their bodies. Obviously, there’s a reason why people do it, they’re insecure, they feel like they’re not good enough, and that’s incredibly sad."

Later that same year, she called out the BodyTune app on Instagram for making people look smaller than they are.

“Our bodies should not conform to 'one size fits all,'" she wrote on Instagram of the "hazardous" app.

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