Gigi Hadid is a force on the runway — and on social media. Though she’s busy at New York Fashion Week, the 22-year-old model didn’t let the opportunity to slam body shamers pass her by.
Hadid shared her thoughts in a series of tweets on Sunday, February 11, after social media users suggested that she is too thin. The backlash came just one day after she walked the catwalk in the Bottega Veneta show.
She began the lengthy tirade explaining her battle with a thyroid issue, which has altered her weight over the years.
“For those of you so determined to come up w why my body has changed over the years, you may not know that when I started @ 17 I was not yet diagnosed w/Hashimoto’s disease; those of u who called me ‘too big for the industry’ were seeing inflammation & water retention due to that,” she wrote.
She continued: “Over the last few years I’ve been properly medicated to help symptoms including those, as well as extreme fatigue, metabolism issues, body’s ability to retain heat, etc … I was also part of a holistic medical trial that helped my thyroid levels balance out.”
The Tommy Hilfiger model went on to explain that though she still eats the same, her body now handles it in a better way thanks to the regulation of the disease. “I may be ‘too skinny’ for u,” she added. “Honestly this skinny isn’t what I want to be, but I feel healthier internally and am still learning and growing with my body everyday, as everyone is.”
Before turning the conversation to cyberbullying, she concluded: “I will not further explain the way my body looks. Please, as social media users & human beings in general, learn to have more empathy for others and know that you never really know the whole story. Use your energy to lift those that you admire rather than be cruel to those u don’t.”
As previously reported, Hadid revealed her struggle with the thyroid condition in a December 2016 interview with Elle. “My metabolism actually changed like crazy this year,” she told the mag at the time. “I have Hashimoto’s disease. It’s a thyroid disease, and it’s now been two years since taking the medication for it, so for the VS show I didn’t want to lose any more weight, I just want to have muscles in the right place, and if my butt can get a little perkier, then that’s good.”
