(Glam Belleza Latina)
Demi Lovato opens up in the 2014 Holiday issue of Glam Belleza Latina about her Latina background and how she learned to embrace her curvy figure in a social media-obsessed world. “Growing up in America, I never really appreciated my culture,” she tells the magazine. “I knew what being Hispanic was, but I thought that since I didn’t look Hispanic, I was white.”
Lovato explains that exploring her Latina background has helped her to appreciate the body she has been given. “I tried to conform to what everyone thinks is beautiful,” she says, but my genetics gave me a curvy figure, and I’ve come to understand that in the Latina culture, that is beautiful.” She adds, “I no longer look at my body and think, Oh my gosh, I have such a fat butt. Or, I hate my thighs. On some days I don’t love them. But, you know, that’s one of the things that makes me me.”
The singer, who has been candid about her struggles with an eating disorder, says social media added to the pressure she felt to be thin. “Social media started impacting my life when I was about 14 years old,” she says. “I would check it obsessively, reading comments and wondering if people noticed that I’d gained or lost weight.” Lovato continues, “I allowed social media to define what I thought of my body. And now I realize that no matter how thin you are, someone will call you fat. No matter how beautiful you are, someone will call you ugly. But you can’t spend your time worrying about that. You’re just not going to please the world.”
Lovato admits she still likes to read fan comments on Twitter, but she’s now able to laugh off the negative remarks. “In the past that would have really affected me,” she says. When it comes down to it, reasons Lovato, “You must love yourself. To look in the mirror and tell yourself that you’re a rock star, you know?” What do you think of Lovato’s interview?
