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Plus size figure skater with unreal moves is inspiring girls everywhere

So many kids have been told they can't figure skate because of their body shape. The doubters were clearly wrong.

Canva Photos

This figure skater is something else.

Is there anything more beautiful and graceful than ice skating? It's got the gorgeous aesthetics of gymnastics and dance combined with an almost other-worldliness as the skaters glide and fly around the ice. There's a reason people can't seem to look away from the rink when the winter Olympics roll around every couple of years.

However, the sport of ice skating comes with certain expectations of what the skaters body should look like. For women, most high level skaters are almost always extremely petite and slight. It stands to reason that this body type must be a requirement to perform at a high level, right?

Wrong. Laine Dubin is one skater who's out to prove that there's no "right way" for an athlete to look.

Dubin, most recently a student at Quinnipiac University where she was a standout on the skating team, began posting videos of her routines online in 2018. Believe it or not, she didn't set out to start a body-positive revolution—she just wanted to document her progress and free up some space on her phone,

But almost instantly, she began to develop a following. No one had ever seen anyone like her pulling off the moves that she could, all with so much personality and showmanship that sucked people in. Not only that, but Dubin displays outstanding power and grace on the ice. If you've only ever watched the "prototypical" Olympic skaters perform, what Dubin does almost looks impossible. It's really amazing to behold.

One clip in particular recently went mega viral to the tune of over 30 million views:

@lainedubin

THE WINNER TAKES IT ALLLLLLLLL🏆🥇 🎥 @Emma #figureskating #figureskatingtiktok #iceskating #iceskatingtiktok #plussizefigureskater #figureskatingtiktoks #iceskater #figureskater #adultfigureskater #adultsskatetoo

Dubin has undoubtedly found her people on social media. The responses to her videos could bring tears to your eyes. Not only are viewers in awe of her skill on the ice, they find so much hope and inspiration in what Dubin is doing:

"Ok but as a bigger Asian girl who has always dreamed of ice skating this made me tear up 😭 so proud of you"

"I NEVER see plus sized rep in figure skating, YOU ARE INCREDIBLE THIS IS SO COOL!!"

"the fact no one knows how absolutely impressive this is especially with girls our size I love ice skating I've been a fan forever the power and strength you need to pull your up and spin like that"

"wait! someone with my body type figure skating?!!! like a GODDESS may I add, this makes me feel so seen, and like, maybe I could do this with some practice as well!!!!!???"

"As a plus sized girl who had the idea of figure skating shot down, thank you for making the lil girl in me happy and I'm so damn proud of you. You're awesome."

Comments just like these roll in on Dubin's videos every single day. But that doesn't mean that general attitudes across the sport are ready to change.

Women skaters, especially, are mercilessly mocked, fat-shamed, and picked apart by viewers, coaches, and even judges of the sport. Five-time Olympic medalist Tessa Virtue has dealt with people nitpicking her body her entire career, calling her either too fat or too muscular. Bronze medalist and two-time US National Champion Gracie Gold had to take a hiatus from the sport to get help with an eating disorder. One of the most promising young figure skaters in recent memory, Yulia Lipnitskaya, was forced to retire at just 19 due to anorexia along with injuries.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to this major problem. The norm is for female skaters in competition to wear incredibly skimpy dresses and outfits that accentuate their form and technique, which would make anyone self-conscious about their body. Canadian skater Kaetlyn Osmond adds that less body mass also helps them achieve sky-high jumps on the ice.

@lainedubin

the greatest thing you’ve ever seen since sliced bread🍞 (thats a joke people) #figureskating #figureskatingtiktok #iceskating #iceskatingtiktok #plussizefigureskater #figureskatingtiktoks #iceskater #figureskater #collegiatefigureskating

Dubin is living proof, though, that a plus-sized body can be athletic, graceful, and beautiful. It means so much to all the kids who think they shouldn't bother pursuing their love of the sport because their own body type will never allow them to fit in.

“It’s just people seeing representation in the media of themselves being represented first,” Dubin told US Figure Skating in 2023. “That’s what will make people feel validated and that’s what will lead to change with body inclusivity in the skating space.”

The way she's racking up millions and millions of views, it's fair to say she—along with other plus-sized skaters—could have a real, tangible impact on the next generation of skating athletes.

Keep up with Dubin and watch her progress, play, and fashion on TikTok and Instagram and visit her Linktree for even more.

This article originally appeared in April.

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Plus size figure skater with unreal moves is inspiring girls everywhere

So many kids have been told they can't figure skate because of their body shape. The doubters were clearly wrong.

Canva Photos

This figure skater is something else.

Is there anything more beautiful and graceful than ice skating? It's got the gorgeous aesthetics of gymnastics and dance combined with an almost other-worldliness as the skaters glide and fly around the ice. There's a reason people can't seem to look away from the rink when the winter Olympics roll around every couple of years.

However, the sports of ice skating comes with certain expectations of what the skaters body should look like. For women, most high level skaters are almost always extremely petite and slight. It stands to reason that this body type must be a requirement to perform at a high level, right?

Wrong. Laine Dubin is one skater who's out to prove that there's no "right way" for an athlete to look.

Dubin, most recently a student at Quinnipiac University where she was a standout on the skating team, began posting videos of her routines online in 2018. Believe it or not, she didn't set out to start a body-positive revolution—she just wanted to document her progress and free up some space on her phone,

But almost instantly, she began to develop a following. No one had ever seen anyone like her pulling off the moves that she could, all with so much personality and showmanship that sucked people in. Not only that, Dubin displays outstanding power and grace on the ice. If you've only ever watched the "prototypical" Olympic skaters perform, what Dubin does almost looks impossible. It's really amazing to behold.

One clip in particular recently went mega viral to the tune of over 30 million views:


@lainedubin

THE WINNER TAKES IT ALLLLLLLLL🏆🥇 🎥 @Emma #figureskating #figureskatingtiktok #iceskating #iceskatingtiktok #plussizefigureskater #figureskatingtiktoks #iceskater #figureskater #adultfigureskater #adultsskatetoo

Dubin has undoubtedly found her people on social media. The responses to her videos could bring tears to your eyes. Not only are viewers in awe of her skill on the ice, they find so much hope and inspiration in what Dubin is doing:

"Ok but as a bigger Asian girl who has always dreamed of ice skating this made me tear up 😭 so proud of you"

"I NEVER see plus sized rep in figure skating, YOU ARE INCREDIBLE THIS IS SO COOL!!"

"the fact no one knows how absolutely impressive this is especially with girls our size I love ice skating I've been a fan forever the power and strength you need to pull your up and spin like that"

"wait! someone with my body type figure skating?!!! like a GODDESS may I add, this makes me feel so seen, and like, maybe I could do this with some practice as well!!!!!???"

"As a plus sized girl who had the idea of figure skating shot down, thank you for making the lil girl in me happy and I'm so damn proud of you. You're awesome."

The comments just like these roll in on Dubin's videos every single day. But that doesn't mean that general attitudes across the sport are ready to change.

Women skaters, especially, are mercilessly mocked, fat-shamed, and picked apart by viewers, coaches, and even judges of the sport. Five-time Olympic medalist Tessa Virtue has dealt with people nitpicking her body her entire career, called either too fat or too muscular. Bronze medalist and two-time US National Champion Gracie Gold had to take a hiatus from the sport to get help with an eating disorder. One of the most promising young figure skaters in recent memory, Yulia Lipnitskaya, was forced to retire at just 19 due to anorexia along with injuries.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to this major problem. The norm is for female skaters in competition to wear incredibly skimpy dresses and outfits that accentuate their form and technique, which would make anyone self-conscious about their body. Canadian skater Kaetlyn Osmond adds that less body mass also helps them achieve sky-high jumps on the ice.

@lainedubin

the greatest thing you’ve ever seen since sliced bread🍞 (thats a joke people) #figureskating #figureskatingtiktok #iceskating #iceskatingtiktok #plussizefigureskater #figureskatingtiktoks #iceskater #figureskater #collegiatefigureskating

Dubin is living proof, though, that a plus-sized body can be athletic, graceful, and beautiful. It means so much to all the kids who think they shouldn't bother pursuing their love of the sport because their own body type will never allow them to fit in.

“It’s just people seeing representation in the media of themselves being represented first,” Dubin tells US Figure Skating. “That’s what will make people feel validated and that’s what will lead to change with body inclusivity in the skating space.”

The way she's racking up millions and millions of views, it's fair to say she—along with other plus-sized skaters—could have a real, tangible impact on the next generation of skating athletes.

This article originally appeared in April

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Woman discovers trick to instantly feel better about how you look in photos: 'ZOOM OUT I beg'

"I promise you’ll look back at those photos ... and see the bigger picture."

Canva Photos

25-year-old woman urges people to stop zooming in on photos.

Millennials in the early 2000s were really enjoying the perks of digital photos and cameras, which were relatively new at the time. I know, it's hard to imagine. We had small, physical cameras with memory cards that we'd carry around with us on a night out, even just to the bar. We would take photos all night—hundreds and hundreds of them. They were blurry, poorly lit, and candid. People were always making awkward faces in the background or being shown at unflattering angles.

We didn't care. We posted every single one of them to a Facebook album, tagged our friends, and let them live there permanently. Can you imagine?!

Things work a little differently now. Our online lives are a lot more curated. We don't post every photo we take, and in fact, all of us intuitively utilize a careful vetting process when we take group pictures or selfies. We snap the pic, or a few, and immediately go to look how it turned out. If it doesn't meet the standards of how we want ourselves to look in a public facing photo, it doesn't get posted. Worse, it might be deleted on the spot, the memory of that moment vanishing forever.

body image, selfies, photography, photos, body positivity, self esteem, self worth, psychology, technology Take me back to when we hardly cared what we looked like in selfies. Giphy

25-year-old Emma-Kirsty Fraser has a theory on why we seem to be so much more selective, even flat out disgusted, with pictures of ourselves these days: It's the damn zoom.

In a recent Instagram reel, Fraser posted a photo of herself as the camera zoomed in the parts of her body she tends to over-examine in photos: Her arms, chin, midsection, and legs.

"Image the brainwashing required to get us to see this," she says as the camera bounces around to all the most self-critiqued parts of her body. "Instead of this!"

The camera then cuts to the full photo, of Fraser laughing and chatting with friends. It's a fun and beautiful moment, full of life. It captures a moment in time, friendship, love, and joy. No one in their right mind would see the photo and have any thoughts whatsoever about the shape of her chin or the size of her arms. But we've all been conditioned to hyper-analyze every pixel when it comes to our own body and how we think we come across in photos.

"ZOOM OUT I beg ... I think it’s quite terrifying when you realise how much brainwashing it took to get you to zoom in and criticise yourself in so much detail? Like if you showed 8 year old Emma a photo of herself there’s no way she would zoom in," Fraser captioned the post.

"There is so much more to life than the way your body looks and I promise you’ll look back at those photos (because you’re not going to delete them anymore!!!) and see the bigger picture, not your skin/body/blemishes."

Believe it or not, "pinch zooming" in on photos is a relatively new phenomenon that cropped up within the last 20 years.

Most experts credit (or blame, depending on your point of view) the iPhone with innovating and popularizing the feature around 2007. In a few years, it was available on Android phones as well. It didn't take long from there for us to ditch our Nikon Coolpix cameras and start exclusively taking photographs on our phones, quickly learning that we could spot and delete our double-chin moments before anyone saw them.

(Smartphones with cameras officially overtook digital cameras around 2007 but didn't become completely ubiquitous until about 2012-2013.)

The world, and our body image, was never the same.

body image, selfies, photography, photos, body positivity, self esteem, self worth, psychology, technology Resist the urge to zoom in on your most sensitive features. Photo by Antoine Beauvillain on Unsplash

Fraser's post went viral, racking up 30,000 Likes on Instagram and over three million views.

Commenters were so grateful for the message they so desperately needed to hear:

"the fact i saw this picture and ONLY thought about how it was such a beautiful candid & captured your vibe perfectly"

"At first ... I saw nothing wrong with her. But if this was a photo of ME, tell why would I suddenly see all the flaws?"

"At first, I thought we were talking about the tattoos, the accessories, etc. because I saw nothing wrong with her. But if this was a photo of ME, tell why would I suddenly see all the flaws?"

"I'm 41, I still really REALLY struggle with this, I zoom in on every photo and criticise every flaw and a "bad" photo can bring down my body image for days. But I've started refusing to delete and coming back to photos after a day or so and slowly I'm learning to realise they often aren't as "bad" as my initial reaction would suggest."

"I struggled to see what you were talking about but then I imagined if it was me and I could see what might be perceived as issues. Kinda sad."

Fraser's words really struck a nerve, and she managed to capture a feeling and phenomenon that we all intuitively understand but rarely talk about.

When we look at photos of others, we see the big picture. We see their smile and the emotion of the photo, we take in the moment. We don't nitpick. So why do we do it to ourselves?

Body image and pressure to look "perfect" is about as bad, or worse, than its ever been—in part because the online world is so heavily curated. Real people are quieter and harder to find on social media, and instead we see more and more perfect-looking influencers and celebrities. Photos are easy to edit, touch up, or apply filters to. The real, blurry, awkward photos of the early 2000s are gone and probably never coming back.

But we can fight back in one very simple way. Just zoom out. Don't inspect your belly, your smile, or whatever your perceived flaws are. Enjoy the picture for what it is, a snapshot of a moment in time. Try to view it like a stranger would. And, for the love of God, don't be so quick to delete the memories that you can't get back.

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U.S. women's rugby player dropped the mic on viewer who mocked her BMI

They're right, but it doesn't mean what people think.

@ilonamaher/Instagram

“BMI doesn’t tell you what I can do.”

It seems like at least once a year, the topic of “BMI,” or “body mass index,” being a flawed measuring system for fat mass and health comes up in conversation. Experts will explain how BMI leads to an incomplete perspective at best—since it doesn't take into consideration several key factors that influence a person’s body composition—and at worst, actual health risks, affecting eligibility for things like weight loss medications, insurance rates, joint-replacement surgery and fertility treatment. And then life moves forward.

And yet, despite the constant debunking, the belief in BMI still marches on. And this time, it was hurled at the USA rugby star and Olympian Ilona Maher. More specifically, someone commented “I bet that person has a 30% BMI” on one of Maher’s TikTok videos.

ilona maher, olympics, team usa, rugby, bmi, body weightBMI is not always an accurate measure of health.

Could this person have simply been pointing out the inherent flaw of BMI? Saying that Maher, an elite athlete, would be considered “overweight” using this system? Perhaps. But this is the internet we’re dealing with, so Maher (and others) interpreted it to be an insult.

And under that context, Maher wasn’t having it, and chose "not to just ignore the haters."

“Hi, thank you for this comment. I think you were trying to roast me, but this is actually a fact. I do have a BMI of 30. Well, 29.3 to be exact,” Maher said in response video…which became something of a roast itself.

Maher talked about how she had been considered “overweight” her entire life, and even recalled being “so embarrassed” to turn in a physical form to the office which had “overweight” written on it.

“I chatted with my dietician, because I go off facts, and not just what pops up here. You know, like you do.” she quipped while tapping her temples.

Maher is 5-ft.-10-in. and 200 lbs, which is considered “overweight” by BMI standards. But as she explained, about 170 of those 200 pounds are “lean muscle mass.”

“Do that math in your head…you probably can’t,” Maher said sarcastically.

It’s easy to see through this example how bogus BMI really is, especially for athletes.

Essentially, “BMI doesn’t tell you what I can do.”

“It doesn’t tell you what I can do on the field. How fit I am. It’s just a couple of numbers put together,” she said. “It doesn’t tell you how much muscle I have, or anything like that.”

Maher concluded by faux lamenting, “I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight. But alas, I am going to the Olympics, and you’re not.”

u.s. women's rugby, jill biden, 2024 olympics ilona maherThe U.S. women's rugby team with First Lady Jill Biden and members of the U.S. delegation to the 2024 Summer Olympic GamesThe White House/Public Domain

While Maher’s clapback was certainly satisfying, it also provided some much needed reassurance to folks. So many commented on how this outdated concept has affected (or still effects) their own body image of that of a loved one.

“How can I get my teenage daughter with a high BMI (but fit!) to understand this?! She feels shamed even at the doctor for her BMI.”

“Dancer here, I'll never forget at 13 being told I had the BMI of 24 of ‘overweight.’ I broke down and the nurse said it didn’t mean anything and all I could think was then WHY are you making me do this?!”


body weight, scale, BMIWeight and BMI can't say what we can do.Giphy

“I had to ask the doctor’s office to put a note on my child’s file to not bring up/talk about BMI in her check ups. It isn't an accurate representation of health!”

“Thank you for sharing your weight, bc seeing lbs numbers in different bodies has been so helpful in me loving mine. I’m nowhere near an athlete's body but damn, the numbers really do us in.”

Until a more affordable solution pops up, BMI will continue to rear its ugly head in doctor’s offices and in our psyches. Maybe this is a reminder that our bodies are so much more than height and weight every now and again is a good thing. And if it comes from an Olympian…even better.

Maher also shut down any notions that her BMI was high due to anything other than muscle with a Sports Illustrated cover shoot in August of 2024. Um, yeah.

Thin and fit are not the same thing. Thank you, Ilona Maher, for the powerful reminder.

This article originally appeared last year.

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