The heat down to a lot of people began to consider going to the swimming…
When UK-based comedian and mother of one Riona O’Connor, 36, realized all she had to do to get a bikini body was to put a bikini on, she decided to make up for the lost time she’d spent agonizing over her figure: Wearing a two-piece swimsuit, she reimagined hit songs, like Beyonce’s “Crazy Right Now” and Lady Gaga’s “Beautiful,” in an epic parody catered to “bikini fearing, cellulite despairing, wobble embracers to dare to jiggle,” according to the caption of her Facebook video. The clip was posted on Wednesday morning and has already received more than 282,000 views:
In the video, Riona wears her two-piece suit to Tesco (a popular grocery store in the UK) on the street, in the car, at the playground, at a bar, and at the beach. “I have never ever felt comfortable or confident in any swimwear, not to mention a bikini, so this video is a way to really challenge myself and other women to change the perception of what a bikini body means,” she says of her decision to take on body image in a video. “I decided to put my money where my mouth was, and really push myself to accept the body I come in, wobbly bits, jiggly bits, and all.”
Although she says starring in the video was fun, she found it difficult to edit the footage, since she was forced to face every angle of her body including “lots of belly rolls flying around the screen, lots of my back fat undulating like the ripples in a pond, my cellulite thighs roaming around a much bigger circumference than I’d like,” as Riona wrote in an Instagram post.
But the experience ultimately left her feeling empowered: “I found as I continued the edit it got easier and easier. Like exposure therapy,” she explains. “What I was so appalled at in the beginning became normal and 100-percent acceptable by the end! Not scary or ugly or weird.”
The video has racked up hundreds of grateful comments from women who can relate to Riona’s inspiring lyrics, which include, “Your belly size is not your worth,” and “I don’t care what size I measure, I just wanna eat my cheddar.”
“I have been told I am brave for doing it,” wholesale bikinis Riona says of the response. “I don’t believe I should be called brave, I think showing my body or any body should just be normal, no big deal.”
The comedian’s approach, it seems, is contagious. In the comment section of her Facebook video, one woman wrote, “Going to steal some of your confidence for myself!”
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