Jameela Jamil Sparks “I Weigh” Movement to Combat Against Society’s Beauty Expectations of Women

Jameela Jamil, who’s an actress, a model, a writer, a British television/radio presenter, and star of NBC’s The Good Place, amassed a popular online movement on Instagram that asks women to define themselves beyond a number on a scale.

It had all started with a post that Jamil had seen while scrolling through Instagram months ago. The post that Jamil saw was a photo of the Kardashian family with each of their respective body weights listed. The person who had made the post then asked in their caption, “What do you weigh?”

Jamil was dismayed at what she saw in the post because the post encouraged the notion that women should only value themselves based on their physical weight and looks.

Jamil had decided to do something about it by sharing a post on her Instagram story about what she “weighed” — her beliefs, her friends, her successes, and her career. Jamil later received an outpouring of “I Weigh” posts from women who followed her example. As a result, Jamil was inspired to create an Instagram for the “I Weigh” movement, @i_weigh, and collect posts that women made to “weigh” in and measure themselves on their current lives, their experiences, their personal achievements, and the milestones they’ve surpassed. The @i_weigh Instagram account had recently achieved over a hundred thousand followers.

In her blog, Jamil asks women to look past a society that cultivates body shaming and to “please think of the things in your life that you are proud of, that fulfil you, that make you happy and write them down somewhere, and look at that list every time you feel that you are failing, or that your jeans are tight, or you have a chubby arm in a group photo of a night out, or when you watch a video of a Hadid eating pasta.”

You can contribute your own post to Jamil’s ‘I Weigh’ movement and share it on Instagram @i_weigh.