Ananya Panday on being skinny-shamed

“They make fun of my toothpick legs.” Ananya Panday shared how she dealt with trolling and comments about her body before she became an actress.  📹:

Transcript

00:00Just like calling me chicken legs or toothpick legs or whatever like stuff like that and also I was very hairy in school

00:06So they used to like I used to have hair on my arms and all when I was young so they used to make fun of that and all

00:14In school, I think as I said, I was surrounded by a really solid group of friends and I had my girls

00:20You know tipped on to whenever I needed and I also had like my parents and even the teachers in my school were really really nice

00:26So I wouldn't say that I was bullied or anything

00:28There was obviously like some teasing in school, you know

00:31If you liked a boy, then they tease you with them or because I was very thin as I still am in school

00:36So they'd make fun of like my toothpick legs

00:41Just like calling me chicken legs or toothpick legs or whatever like stuff like that and also I was very hairy in school

00:47So they used to like I used to have hair on my arms and all when I was young so they used to make fun of that and all

00:52So all those things used to call me hunchback because I used to have a slouch but like I feel like I

00:58Always got through it because of my friends. I feel like that's what I derived my like

01:03Positivity and my self-confidence from but there used to be pictures of me with my parents because that time I wasn't an actor

01:09So, you know, I'd go out with my parents and stuff. And as I said, I was very thin I didn't look you know

01:15People used to say I look like a boy. I'm like a flat screen. I looked like all those kind of things

01:20So I feel like at that time it did hurt because those are the years where you're forming your self-confidence

01:25and you know, you're like you're learning to love yourself and then when you feel like someone else is pulling you down then it really

01:31Just gets then you start doubting yourself. You start doubting the way you look and everything

01:36I think when you get bullied too much you have a certain resistance to it and then it stops affecting you

01:41Then you are like, it doesn't matter what anyone says. Did you reach that point anytime in life?

01:46I feel like I'm reaching that point. I feel like it's like an ongoing process

01:51I can't say that it still doesn't hurt me because I feel like I am pretty thick-skinned and I am pretty strong

01:57Because as you said when it's been happening from such a young age, then you kind of develop that thick skin

02:02but I feel like

02:03Still one day if you're not in the right frame of mind if something happened at work and then on top of that you see

02:09Something then it can hurt you like if I say that it doesn't hurt me

02:12I definitely be lying because there are days when I'm like, but why you know, what did I do?

02:16That's like so wrong that people, you know get it and I feel like when people attack your personality

02:22That's like the worst thing that someone can do because that's purely you. That's like yourself, you know

02:27So I feel like it does hurt when people say that oh her voice is so irritating

02:32Why is she talking like this and there's like thousand people, you know doing my mimicry and all and all of that stuff

02:37but I feel like

02:40You just have to

02:42Develop a thick skin and just be as positive as you can be as kind as you can be and make sure you don't let

02:48Someone feel that way is what I feel like you can do. You can't go and

02:52Control other people's lives or their opinions and all of that stuff

02:55But you have to try to be that better person and the bigger person in the situation