British Athletes Ditch Kit For Body Positive Campaign

Skeet shooter Amber Hill, windsurfer Bryony Shaw and long jumper Stefanie Reid have ditched their training kit for lingerie as part of a body positive campaign. The two Olympians and Paralympian are part of a "Be Strong Be Beautiful" campaign.

The campaign centres around the drop off in sports from girls aged 13 in school because of 'body issues' and to show that strong and powerful bodies are beautiful bodies and by the looks of things they've got it spot on.

Shaw, the bronze medalist at the RS:X class in Beijing in 2008 spoke about how she felt about her body when she was in school saying, "I would always keep my body concealed when I was growing up and especially at school because I was concerned other kids would say: 'Oh look at her, she looks like a boy.'"

18 year-old Hill, currently one of the world's top shooters, talked about girl's dropping out of sports because of their body's and how she was faced with questions about shooting saying, "Girls at school tend to get to a certain level in sport and then drop out because they don't want that muscular body change. They think that not training or being involved in sport is the right way to go about it.

"Boys outnumber girls by ten to one in competitive shooting. At one press conference a journalist asked me: "Why shooting? "That's not a very sexy sport, is it?' And I replied: 'Well, I'll have to make it sexy then.'" She certainly seems to have given that a good go.

Amber Hill. Three Team GB athletes going for gold in Rio this summer have stripped down to their lingerie to show that a sporty body is a sexy body

Amber Hill. Three Team GB athletes going for gold in Rio this summer have stripped down to their lingerie to show that a sporty body is a sexy body

Stef Reid. Three Team GB athletes going for gold in Rio this summer have stripped down to their lingerie to show that a sporty body is a sexy body

Stef Reid. Three Team GB athletes going for gold in Rio this summer have stripped down to their lingerie to show that a sporty body is a sexy body

Bryony Shaw. Three Team GB athletes going for gold in Rio this summer have stripped down to their lingerie to show that a sporty body is a sexy body

Bryony Shaw. Three Team GB athletes going for gold in Rio this summer have stripped down to their lingerie to show that a sporty body is a sexy body

Reid, a five time world record holder, became an amputee at 15 and spoke about girls quitting sport because it wasn't seen as feminine saying, "I hate the idea of girls not reaching their full potential in sport because they are afraid they won't be accepted, or that it somehow makes them less feminine. The best day of my life was when a rugby ball was put in my hands, and I was told I could be as aggressive as I wanted to on the pitch!"

The women were all speaking as part of BlueBella's "Be Strong Be Beautiful" campaign started on the back of research done on school children with half of the 1500 school-girls asked saying PE lessons had put them off doing any sport at all.

(Via: Mirror)

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