Women push against 'body shaming'

Strict diet

Tan Xiaoyue, a 22-year-old postgraduate student at Tsinghua University in Beijing, was influenced by such an environment.

When she began a strict diet during her senior year at high school, she said most of the girls in her class were also "starving" themselves, so it was seen as normal.

At 48 kg and 161 centimeters, Tan felt she was not thin enough, despite body mass index measurements stating that the normal weight for a woman of her stature is 47.95 kg to 64.78 kg.

She was mocked by male classmates, who called her "fatty" and asked "How can you look even bigger than me?" That prompted her to lose weight.

She allowed herself a normal breakfast, but only a single egg or corncob for lunch and no dinner.

She also became an exercise fanatic, forcing herself to work out every day.

Six months later, when she entered university as a freshman, her weight had dropped to 39.5 kg and she enjoyed "admiring" her protruding ribs in the mirror.

The starvation diet quickly backfired, and Tan developed bulimia nervosa, an eating disorder characterized by food binges followed by self-induced vomiting as a "purge".

To offset the guilt of overeating, she decided to work out even more, but that did not prevent her weight from rising to 61 kg.

When the frequent binge eating began to affect her mental health, Tan finally realized she was sick and went to see a doctor.

After receiving treatment, she said she can now maintain a healthy relationship with food and has returned to her normal weight of 48 kg.

Even so, she still feels insecure about her body image sometimes.

"I don't have a pretty face, and I just think things will be worse if I don't have a dainty body," she said, adding that the insecurity partly stems from caring too much about other people's opinions.

To convince women that they shouldn't be bothered by outside voices, Zhang's employer－an independent social media channel founded by a former employee of the company where she interned－recently released a video featuring her trying a range of physical activities, including strength training, CrossFit training and dancing.

The activities were a breakthrough for Zhang, who had always refused to go to a gym because she felt that tight leggings and a sports bra would reveal too much of her "ungainly" figure.

The video garnered more than 374,000 views and 1,000 comments on Weibo, a popular social media platform, with many people saying they related to Zhang's experience at the gym.

"On social media, there are lots of videos that either show pale, thin female celebrities or feature fitness influencers demonstrating how motivated and self-disciplined they are by working out every day," Zhang said.

"I think my video resonated with so many people because they saw something different from those key opinion leaders. They realized that there are people who are just like them, and who can speak for them. We need to be more tolerant and open minded, and we need to hear different voices."

Xu Xiaowen contributed to this story.