By Emily Hartley
Jessica Jones, also known as ‘The Fat Funny One’, is a blogger, content creator, writer, body confidence activist, motivational speaker and a self-proclaimed cake and chicken wing addict!
She wrote the show, Fat, Funny and Fearless, then decided she wanted to go on tour, and empower other women.
After her debut show sold out in London, Jess took to social media and asked her followers where they wanted her to tour and lots of people said Leeds, which out of her seven shows, was only one of two northern dates she did, the other being Liverpool.
She said that she was glad that she chose Leeds as it was amazing, and she loved the people, and went on to say it was a city she wanted to embrace and be a part of.
Jess’ tour finally came to Leeds at the beginning of February, as she acknowledged not everyone can travel to London, so despite her being eight and a half months pregnant at the time, she did the travelling instead.
With an increasing demand and love for women of all shapes and sizes emerging in the media, with well-known brands, such as Missguided and ASOS becoming more diverse with their models and clothes ranges, perhaps body positivity activists like Jess are making an impact in our world today.
Jess struggled with bullying and anxiety for much of her life and was diagnosed with Tokophobia during her first pregnancy, which is when she decided she needed to focus on self-love, concentrating on her mental health and body confidence.
After embarking on her journey of self-love, she said her life has changed for the better.
She now aims to show women that they can love themselves no matter their shape or size and also preaches this on her various social media platforms and even has a podcast.
Jess originally started her Instagram as a weight-loss account but soon decided she wanted to be herself and would just see if someone, somewhere could relate – she now has almost 60 thousand followers!
‘The Fat Funny One’ on the screen before she made her arrival on stage
She started her blog a few years ago and has been sharing her journey, including her mental health struggles, to empower women and try to break the stigma.
She feels like she should practice what she talks about and is often wearing very little on her social media accounts to try and show that all bodies are different.
Despite the demand and support Jess receives, she also said she does receive some nasty comments and online trolling and despite it making her temporarily frustrated to read negative comments, they will never outweigh the positivity, so she doesn’t let it get her down.
Jess’ mum was also part of the act on the tour and Jess said that her confidence comes from her, as she never heard her speak negatively about her own body and always emphasised that beauty comes from being a good, genuine person.
The whole tour is dedicated to her friend, Emma, who she called the “life and soul of the party” but who passed away.
Jess said that Emma always had brilliant advice, which was always to do what you want to do and try to live your life to the fullest.
Did you know?
*‘Higher body dissatisfaction is associated with a poorer quality of life, psychological distress and the risk of unhealthy eating behaviours and eating disorders’, according to a body image report.
*According to Young Minds, it is important to remember that there isn’t a single type of beauty and that everyone sees it differently.
*Not only women struggle with body image, some men struggle with body positivity too, and Metro have written about how a men’s health and wellbeing platform, have put together a campaign called ‘Men of Manual’ to challenge the stereotypes of the male body.