The Bold And Beautiful Movement

With a dynamic energy that has revolved around various roles like teacher, dancer, amateur actor, financial marketer, writer, strategic planner and currently, cause marketer as the General Manager of vision1, ShanukiDe Alwis has always carried her confident stance on body positivity wherever she has gone.

- Sumaiya Shuaibdeen

I grew up watching people taking emotionally abusive potshots at my mum’s weight problems. The intensity of this never impacted me when I was young as I was never bullied and I was called lassanai (beautiful) or sudhui (fair) since I was half my current size and quite fair. It was only when I grew up that I realized how hurtful it would have been to my mother. I’ve also witnessed my friends suffer from hurtful comments about their weight and looks. For instance, when we’d go out, the boys would often ignore them and compliment me, and this didn’t feel right.

And as years passed, I started to put on weight, so everyone who called me beautiful and only saw my looks started to put me down as I was not meeting their irrational beauty standards. Nevertheless, these comments didn’t hurt me — I was okay with who I was and didn’t have a problem with it. Instead, I started embracing every bit of my body by naming each part of it and befriending them. So, my tummy is called Wilbur and he is pretty famous as my friends come to get his blessings! I call my ample bottom ‘Sandra Buttocks’, a name I also gave to a friend’s posterior. Wilbur is a star on social media since I make little stories about him, like how he gets excited about pasta.