Crystal Renn: The problem is that we as a society simply accept these...

All women bring something different to the table and we have to appreciate them all.

Crystal Renn

appreciate different tables

My body has changed and it will continue change in the future — that is natural for anyone. What matters to me most is that even though external change is inevitable, my passion for encouraging women to love themselves at any size and to live, thrive, and to go after their dreams is a part of my permanent nature. Even though my body and mind may evolve through life and experience, my values on this matter have not.

Crystal Renn

passion what-matters dream

I walked into my agency and I said, "You know what? I can't do this. You're telling me I need to go on a diet? My diet is already zucchini only. What do you want me to do?" And basically, they gave me two options: either stay the way I was and do commercial work, or do plus size modeling. I remember having the usual salad but I added walnuts and salmon and olive oil and I thought, "The world didn't blow up!"I felt fantastic. I wanted to keep that feeling so I made a decision that day that I didn't care. There was more money to be made being healthy.

Crystal Renn

healthy decision blow

We women are a lot more powerful if we see ourselves as fighters on the same side. But it’s easier to judge others - their choices and their bodies - than to think about the struggles we share.

Crystal Renn

powerful struggle thinking

Photoshop is an art, and you can do a lot with it. Change the atmosphere through different lighting and make the pictures look more interesting.

Crystal Renn

atmosphere art interesting

I have made a choice to listen to myself even if everyone in the entire world doesn't agree with what I think. I know me, at the end of the day and I know what I can handle emotionally and what I can handle physically.

Crystal Renn

the-end-of-the-day choices thinking

I have no problem with plus-size term because it kind of saved my life; however I don't love that we have to give each other titles. I don't think that there's any reason I should be any different than a size two girl. But I'm not embarrassed of that term. I'm lucky that I have a place where I can model and be healthy.

Crystal Renn

girl giving thinking

Models should just be beautiful women who inspire others. They won't be starving themselves because they are being accepted for themselves. Any thinner than today's ideals would be impossible. Any thinner means dead.

Crystal Renn

beautiful inspire mean

Too many of us feel that we have to be perfect, in order to be loved.

Crystal Renn

perfect feels order

You can never go wrong with a nice red lip. I'm not afraid to wear it during the day or basically any time because I wear a lot of black and it's a great backdrop for it.

Crystal Renn

red black nice

It's so hard to give beauty a meaning. I actually find quite a lot of beauty in really painful things. Really grotesque things. Things that are disturbing. I think as you go and as you see things in the world, your idea of beauty expands and I think I'm lucky because I've been exposed to so many different types of beauty and I've realized that any feeling you cherish is beautiful.

Crystal Renn

beautiful giving thinking

We can always find each other, we girls with secrets.

Crystal Renn

anorexia girl secret

There's been a lot of focus on my body, but it's taught me to appreciate myself no matter where I am.

Crystal Renn

appreciate focus body

Focus and having energy is the most important goal when choosing my activities and how I treat myself.

Crystal Renn

focus important goal

Pascal Wager invented the calculator and he also said you can apply mathematics to faith in God so I thought that was pretty interesting.

Crystal Renn

mathematics faith-in-god interesting

I like to think of myself as a child of the world. I really am based in New York but I find that even though I'm based there, I'm gone more often than not.

Crystal Renn

children world thinking

Looking back, it didn't even occur to me that model was a job. I wanted to go into astronomy or to be a lawyer, which is really funny because I would absolutely not be a lawyer in any way now. But I still like astronomy.

Crystal Renn

looking-back astronomy lawyer

I was anorexic. I was in hell. Now I eat what I want, and I'm still a model. So you see, it works.

Crystal Renn

hell models want

Do I have bad days? Absolutely. But there are ways to overcome these things and that's perhaps what I do differently: I don't allow myself to dwell day after day on my imperfections.

Crystal Renn

imperfection bad-day overcoming

I just couldn't have people thinking that I only believe thin is beautiful. Thin is beautiful, but it's not the only kind of beautiful. I didn't want people to get the wrong message because of some retouching.

Crystal Renn

beautiful believe thinking

The problem is that we as a society simply accept these unrealistic standards: that you have to be thin to be perfect, to be beautiful, to be successful at work and to have a good relationship. And it is making us sick. This self-loathing is crippling women.