ABC/Lorenzo Bevilaqua(NEW YORK) — In her new book, A New Model: What Confidence, Beauty and Power Really Look Like, Sports Illustrated cover girl Ashley Graham speaks plainly about the fat-shaming she said she endured at home in her youth.
“I really believe that parents need to know that they are shaping the future of their children,” Graham, 29, said on Tuesday’s Good Morning America.
“Words have power. The things that you say to yourself as a parent, even the things that you say maybe just one time to your children,” Graham said. “They take it, and they take it into their real world and their life and beyond. And I wanted to get candid because I want to be a better parent than what I had.”
Graham recalled her father’s “Constant criticism — that was my dad…My father was a master of the cutting insult. His nickname for me was, ‘Duh,’ because he didn’t think I was very smart.”
Graham went on, “The worst I ever felt in my entire career was when…my dad agreed with my new agent, who said I needed to ‘tighten up.’ … I was sobbing because my dad thought I should lose weight.”
Graham said her mom, on the other hand, “was absolutely amazing.”
“One thing my mother did, and I learned later, was she never looked in the mirror and said, ‘I’m so fat.’ Or ‘I’m so ugly,'” Graham said. “Projecting that onto yourself is only going to make your daughter or son think that of themselves, because they’re a product of you. So just saying, ‘You know what? I look really good today’…they’re like, ‘Oh, maybe I need to say that to myself.'”
A New Model: What Confidence, Beauty and Power Really Look Like is out now.
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