“You are you and that is your power!”- Chika Ike on Body Image

Nollywood Actress Chika Ike in a post on her Instagram page narrates how she was constantly bullied while growing up because of her body and height. She says she was picked on so often because of how slim she was, adding that she did everything to put on some weight.

The actress then added that today, the. reverse is the case as she’s working out and eating right everyday to maintain her current desired weight.

To conclude the post, Chika encouraged people not to live their lives for other people and to focus and love themselves

See her post below:

I never liked my body growing up and was constantly bullied about it. I was so skinny and was the tallest in my class. I never looked forward to morning assembly because I’ll have to stand at the back of the class or class presentations to talk about “your best friend “ because I’ll be described as the thin girl. I can remember eating all sorts to things to gain weight but nothing worked, I really craved to have some flesh on me. I was called all sorts of names like Lepa, thin girl and Agric chicken because I was so skinny and tall. So I started modeling as soon as I graduated from secondary school because modeling agents thought I had “the look”. Today the reverse is the case, I’m on all sorts of diet programs and exercising every other day to keep the weight I’ve always wanted in check, I feel bad after licking ice cream or eating anything with high-calorie content because ill have to suffer in the gym. Growing up slim wasn’t cool now its cool. The truth is you have to constantly love you, you can’t be cool to everyone, the world will always have a standard of what you should be, who you should be and how you should live your life. If you want to make changes or improvements let it not be because of pressure or people’s unconscious bias about you.Do it for you. You should hold your pen and draw your life plan… Do you… Mind your business…..Run your race. Do not let anyone define you or rush you with their timeline. We all have different stories, journeys, and different clocks. You are you and that is your power!?❤️

A post shared by Chika Ike (@chikaike) on Apr 2, 2018 at 3:06am PDT