A new world for big girls: an interview with Kitty Underhill

Meet model, presenter, activist and more, Kitty Underhill, and prepare to feel less alone in it all

Kitty Underhill is a fireball – an up-and-coming fashion force to be reckoned with. Determined to shake up the industry, and wake up the world to the dangerous realities of diet culture, she’s going for the metaphorical jugular.

At only 26-years-old, the London native already has the titles of actress, presenter, signed model, body acceptance activist and coach-in-training under her belt. To some, it may sound as though Underhill has it all figured out, but she’s fought tooth-and-nail to stand where she is today.

Battling disordered eating, an upbringing that did it’s best to encourage low self-esteem, and a world sometimes still unready for the diversity she represents, Kitty pushes on through it all.

From a young age, Underhill struggled to find a good relationship with her body. “Growing up, my body image was really not great at all and that’s probably why I’m do what I’m doing today”, she says, “because I hate the thought of anyone feeling the way I felt when I was younger, you know?”

Having developed earlier than her peers, she often found herself wondering just why it was her body was larger, shapelier and attracted more attention than anyone else’s.

For her poor body image, she finds two main causes – society, and her surroundings. “I was always made to feel hyper-conscious of my body and it got worse towards my pre-teens and teenage years”, she states, as it seems to do for so many of us. “For a while my mum would only eat one meal a day, so I would start doing the same. Later, I went to an all-girls school where basically every lunch time teachers would go around classrooms to make sure girls weren’t in there, skipping lunch. And I thought that was a totally normal thing until my friend pointed out how hideously awful it was.”

Brainwashed by a culture that encourages even the youngest of girls to see the value of slimness over the value of self, Underhill prioritised ‘improving’ her body from here on out. Soon, she found herself falling for someone at the first sign of affection.

“I ended up dating someone who would never admit that we dated”, she confides, “because he didn’t want anyone to see that he was involved with someone like me. He told me that, and it was hideous.”

The emotional abuse only started there. When Underhill didn’t immediately start to change her shape for him, to help him keep up appearances, he started to guilt her in to it. “He’d send me pictures of skinny celebrities and be like, ‘oh, why don’t you look like that?’, on more than one occasion”, she says.

“But the thing is, is that I felt so bad about my body that I thought he had a point. That’s when I stopped eating as much, I was trying to exercise more and I lost a lot of weight but I just wasn’t well.”

All of this contributed to the darkest phase of her life. “I never had a good model of what eating properly and having a good relationship with food and my body was”, she tells us, explaining: “all that kind of stuff was completely alien to me until I moved out of home and realised living like this was an option.”

Despite it all, she never blames those that were around her. “It’s not their fault, it’s just a product of what they’ve internalised as well”, she states: “They mean well, you know, they think they’re doing what’s best for you but it’s actually a very insidious culture that none of us ever think to question.”

This turbulent relationship with body image lasted “I’d say probably up until the last couple of years when I started modelling a bit more”, she says.

For starting her recovery from diet cultured thinking, and over a decade of self-hatred, she credits two chance occurrences.

“One of my lecturers at university was one of the first people to introduce me to the concept of fatphobia, and it was something I’d never considered before in my life”, says the now-activist in the field. “It was from that then I started the process of unlearning this stuff”, and in the process, found the body positive community. Through hours spent online, learning through social media and web resources, Underhill began to feel less alone in it all.

“I know now that there’s an antidote”, she asserts, and this knowledge has been life-changing.

“I think for so long I just assumed that was it, you know? I’m going to hate my body forever. I’m always going to hate myself and everyone else will carry on hating themselves too and that’s just the way it is, until I realised it doesn’t have to be.”

“That was the most incredible, empowering thing for me”, she reminisces, “and it was totally the start of the work I’ve been doing, both internally and for other people.”

It was because of the body positive, and body accepting, communities that a new opportunity can into her life. “I really fell into modelling by accident”, she laughs, recalling the start of her career. Having attempted to broaden her show reel by featuring in a music video, she was surprised when a contact from set asked her to model for an up-and-coming clothing line.

At first, she was apprehensive: “It never occurred to me that anyone who had my body type or looked like me could ever be a model, because I never saw anyone who looked like me.” She couldn’t be a model when they all looked so different from herself, surely?

“But I went, and I realised I could actually really do this, and it was something I was good at.” She’s giddy thinking back on her humble beginnings now. “I always think it’s kind of funny because, for years, people at school would take the piss out of me for being so posed in all my photos, and now I make money from it!”

Taking all she’s learnt about diet culture, fatphobia and the movement to accept all bodies – particularly her own – Underhill is storming into the modelling industry head-first. Having recently been signed to Crumb agency, she feels more seen, and more responsible for change, than ever.

Now, being photographed in her underwear and celebrating her skin is nothing new. But even she still has her struggles.

“It’s not a magic cure”, she asserts. “I still have those days where I feel like if anyone sees me I’ll want to die, but I don’t think so consciously about my body anymore. A big thing about body acceptance isn’t just that you celebrate your body, but that it becomes less of a thought in your mind.” These days are part of a normal, healthy life for her now, just as they should be for us all.

And for Underhill, that’s where true body image success lies. You don’t have to be in love with your body all hours of the day, but just to let it be seems a great first step.

Even with her bad days, she’s now happier – and freer – than ever. “I think I’m coming into my own”, she says, smiling: “I’m buying clothes and I don’t check the label anymore because it’s just completely arbitrary. One shop’s size 16 is another’s 18, is another’s 12 and it makes no bloody sense. I think as soon as I learnt that, I realised these numbers make no fucking difference to my life!”

It’s this revolutionary attitude that has proven her so popular, and won her agency over in the first place.

In her new position as a model of note, she hopes to spread awareness of the body confidence cause and to help every young girl that’s ever felt like her finally feel beautiful.

“Representation is so valuable because even if it’s just so someone can go, ‘oh, she looks like me’, it helps make it normal. It’s not got someone thinking they should have bigger boobs or bigger hips or a smaller waist. It allows you to just rest assured in the fact that your body is normal and okay – and not only that, but really gorgeous as well.”

And where does she see the representation of more natural, normal women taking fashion as a whole?

“Whether the industry will come around to it soon, I don’t know, they’ve got a lot of fat phobia to unlearn first. But hopefully all of this will help for people like me”, she says. “Ultimately, though, we need to keep going.”

“I’m not a win, I’m just part of the step forward, I hope.”