Ariel Winter, AKA, Alex Dunphy from Modern Family has grown up right before our very eyes.
If you follow her on Instagram, you might have noticed that she’s lost quite a bit of weight over the last few years — mainly this year.
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One fan came forward and asked her outright how she lost so much weight so quickly, and her response may surprise you.
Ariel has a long history of fending off body-shamers.
And considering she’s only 21 years old, that says a lot.
Having to cope with overwhelming amounts of criticism about your body at such a young age will definitely take its toll.
After blossoming out of her teen years, she slowly began to lose weight.
For a while, it seemed like everyone was supportive — praising her for how good she looked.
And it was well deserved!
From the looks of it, Ariel was up in the gym working on her fitness (sorry, I couldn’t not quote Fergalicious).
She kept fans in the loop on her progress by posting workout videos regularly.
From the outside it seemed like fans were genuinely glad that Ariel was looking so happy and healthy.
But when it comes to social media, you can’t please everyone.
When she started to drop weight more rapidly, fans noticed, and she had to defend the fact that she wasn’t using drugs or plastic surgery to lose weight.
She sarcastically replied to hateful comments on Instagram accusing her of doing cocaine and meth as a means of losing weight quickly.
She clapped back at a fan that accused her of “chopping up” her body.
“I appreciate you wanting to help girls love themselves,” she said, adding, “but you are also kind of cutting someone (me) down which isn’t what I think you were trying to do? I also didn’t get plastic surgery”.
Duing a AMA segment on Instagram, someone asked Ariel why she was “so thin”.
“For years I had been on anti-depressants that caused me to gain weight that I couldn’t lose no matter what I did,” she explained.
“It was always frustrating for me because I wanted to get fit and feel like the work I was doing was paying off, but it never felt that way. I had accepted it and moved on,” she went on.
She explained that finding a medication that worked for her was “really long and difficult”.
Eventually Ariel was fed up and decided to stop taking the medication she was previously on, and find a combination that better suited her needs.
She explained that she is on a “great combination” of medications now.
“The change in medication instantly made me drop all the weight I couldn’t lose before by just giving me back a metabolism,” she said.
“While I feel better mentally with the change, and it’s nice to work out and have your body actually respond”.
However, Ariel did reveal that she would like to gain some of the weight back — in certain areas at least.
“I want to gain a few pounds of muscle and get healthier. Also want my butt back”.
“There’s nothing shameful about seeing a therapist or being on medication,” she said.
“I’m hoping the discussions will keep us progressing in the right direction with mental health check ups.”
“We don’t need to hide our struggles even though I know how hard it is to share,” she added.
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
This fan pointed out that Ariel can’t seem to win.
When she’s carrying a few extra pounds she gets criticized — so she loses the weight and just ends up getting criticized even more.
Good for Ariel for speaking up about the realities of mental illness and emphasizing that there’s no shame in it!
What do you think of Ariel’s recent weight loss transformation and the recent backlash she’s experiencing because of it?