Mindy Kaling shared a body-positive message about wearing bikinis, and we love her so much
We’re endlessly grateful to the body positivity movement for helping to shatter narrow (and often unattainable) standards of beauty that have existed for far too long—namely that only certain body types should wear a bikini. Of course, every body is a bikini body, with absolutely zero exceptions. Sometimes, however, we need a little reminder of that fact for ourselves, especially because “bikini body” season is officially in full swing, and so many of us deal with insecurities related to our body image.
Enter Mindy Kaling, who just gave us all the swimsuit inspo we needed over the July 4th holiday weekend. The actress shared two stunning photos of herself in colorful, printed two-piece swimsuits, along with a video discussing the idea of a “bikini body.”
While she obviously looks amazing in the side-by-side photos, what we love most is the message in the post’s caption and in her accompanying video. In her caption, Kaling writes, “IDK who needs to hear this but… ? WEAR A BIKINI IF YOU WANT TO WEAR A BIKINI. You don’t have to be a size 0.”
In the video, Kaling is hanging by her pool, and she discusses college trips to visit her best friend in Hawaii. Specifically, she says she loved seeing so many people of all body types rocking a bikini on the beach.
"My very best friend in the world, Jocelyn, is from Hawaii. And I would go and visit her when I was in college. And what I was struck about Hawaii is that everybody wears bikinis," she says. "It does not matter what your body type is. You rock a bikini. Because you're in Hawaii. And there's so much body positivity there that I—who was always really shy about my body—would wear bikinis."
Because it’s summertime, she felt inspired to wear a few high-waisted bikinis (her personal fave!) and she encouraged her followers to rock their own bikinis and share the photos with her by tagging her in their shots. Obviously, we love this so much.
We were happy to see that in her tagged photos there are fans from all over the world showing off their own bikini bodies, because every body deserves to rock the swimsuit that makes them feel fabulous.
Of course, we have a long way to go before all types of beauty are equally represented by mainstream media and advertising, but Kaling’s post is a refreshing reminder that the only thing you need to do this summer (or any summer) to get a bikini body is put on a bikini. So go forth and show off that two-piece. We can’t wait to double-tap those pics all summer long.
