VIRAL ALERT: Olivia Kirkby

The online world is truly a dangerous place for young women and men. Young minds are easily influenced by negative content and online bullying and harassment. With body positivity gaining traction on the internet, it’s still difficult to counteract the societal standards of beauty and body standards for women. There will always be people who tear others down who don’t meet their expectation of what a woman's body should look like.

It’s difficult to find representation for every body type on the internet as well. Most body positive creators are either petite or plus-size and use their platform to discuss how to counteract the hate they receive towards their specific body type. It’s difficult to find representation for mid-size women or women who are not necessarily at either side of the spectrum. That's why TikTok creator Olivia Kirkby (@olivia_kirkby) is a perfect influence for women who need a little help to see the beauty in all body types and reject the idea of societal influence on body standards.

The best way to describe Olivia Kirkby is a ray of sunshine. Her voice, smile, and confidence are contagious, which is why she makes the best person to follow if you need a pick-me-up when it comes to self-confidence and body positivity. She is located in London, England, and has been posting videos on TikTok since July of 2020. For a relatively new and young creator, her videos are a huge hit with women of all ages. She has over 815 thousand followers with over 33 million likes on her page as of this writing. She began her content by discussing her journey healing from her eating disorder, which resonated with a lot of her followers. Under her playlist “Recovery”, she sits down and talks about why she decided to begin her road to recovery and ultimately embrace weight gain as a form of healing and growth.

The idea of weight gain can be a scary concept to young women who believe that it is conventional, attractive, or desirable. However, Olivia Kirkby challenges those ideas and replaces these fears with the promise of leading a healthier lifestyle than one with an eating disorder. She reminds followers that your body is deserving of nutrients and should be respected and cared for properly. Recovery and happiness is possible after struggling with an eating disorder.

Under another playlist, Olivia has unlocked a secret to embracing your body and all of the insecurities you may have. She calls it her “cute lil formula” and is meant to take all of your worries and doubts about your body and turn them into something you should admire and find lovely about yourself. She explains this by turning your biggest insecurity -- for example, your belly -- and placing “cute lil” in front of it. By doing this, you change a negative into a positive and start to be able to retrain yourself to see the beauty in what you deem to be your flaws.

It may sound silly at first, but using this formula is just a way to begin to change your perspective and learn to love yourself a little more one body part and one insecurity at a time. Olivia isn’t afraid to show her followers the ropes; she doesn’t care to show off what many would consider an insecurity in her videos. It makes it just a little easier to start appreciating yourself when someone else leads the way.

With so many content creators only showing fans and followers what they want them to see, it's truly a breath of fresh air to see someone willing to show off all their angles in a video. Instead of perfectly posing, Olivia shows her followers what real bodies look like behind the scenes. The power of posing and photo editing is something that is difficult for young women to understand without people like Olivia showing the difference. It can be incredibly confusing to see how fake social media can be.

She also has a series called “Confidence”, which shows women how much confidence can make a difference when it comes to appearance and self-image. Confidence and attractiveness goes hand-and-hand, so a little bit of confidence can completely transform you. In these videos, she shows that, if you show off your true smile and reject your discomfort in your skin, you can shine bright and feel confident no matter what you wear.

Last but not least, her series “What I Eat in a Day” makes recovery from an eating disorder just a little bit easier. Not restricting calories but continuing to fuel your body with the nourishment it needs and deserves is the perfect way to feel good and keep your confidence up. If you need a little encouragement to get started, watch these videos and make sure to eat enough and keep your body healthy and happy.