The 2023 Australian of the Year has been announced and it comes as no surprise that it’s South Australian based body positivity advocate Taryn Brumfitt.
With a stacked resume and extensive work as a writer, director and body image advocate, what started as a viral post is now headed to the upper echelons of Australian politics, and she’s only getting started.
If the name Taryn sounds familiar we don’t blame you. She first shot to attention in the public stratosphere a decade ago, when a simple before and after photo she posted to her Facebook went viral online.
In the photo, she depicted how her body had changed after the birth of her third child. But we will come back to this.
Taryn has been working in body advocacy for more than a decade.
(IMAGE: Getty)
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After considering plastic surgery, taking up an intense exercise regime (which also led to a stint competing in bodybuilding competitions) and crash dieting to regain her pre pregnancy figure, Taryn came to a realization; she was deeply unhappy, and that chasing the always elusive ”perfect figure” was the core reason for that.
And thus began her journey on social media and her move into body image advocacy with this simple reverse shot of her body, opting to embrace her figure and love her body for what it was.
In her before shot, Taryn depicted her ripped abs and lean figure during her bodybuilding stage, the after a stark comparison, showing her after giving up the strict regime that was contributing to so much unhappiness.
This is the photo that went viral.
(IMAGE: Instagram)”My ‘after’ is as I am now, cellulite, stretch marks, folds, rolls, all the things,” she told the ABC after the news broke that she was this year’s Australian of the Year.
In the ten years since she has reached more than 200 million people, sharing her message of self acceptance with the world.
After an overwhelming response to her message of self love and body positivity, Taryn was propelled into action, amassing a social media following of more than 500,000, writing a book titled Purposeful and follow up documentary – Embrace.
In Embrace, Taryn explored her own journey of loving her body, and unpacked why so many women are unhappy in the skin they are in.
As a follow up in 2022, she launched Embrace Kids in an effort to explore the relationship children have with their bodies and social media, covering topics such as disability, gender identity, representation and diversity.
”The lifestyle that I lived to have that perfect body felt very restrictive, and it wasn’t really very joyful,” she told Jennifer Dulski in her book Purposeful.
In her inaugural speech, Taryn said that she planned to use her award to speed up her goals of improving how children and teenagers across Australia see their bodies.
”I know what I’m about, we’ve got a mission, we’re going to stay focused, and I’m really discerning about where I put my energy and right now that’s firmly on fixing a really big problem for our Australian schoolchildren.”
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