LOGAN — A Logan County native is using her talent to help women everywhere feel beautiful, no matter what size they are.
Katie Hedrick, daughter of Perry and Jeri Wallace of Davin, graduated from Man High School and the Ralph R. Willis Career and Technical Center in 2007. Last December she earned her Bachelor of Creative Arts from West Virginia University Institute of Technology.
Hedrick has her own photography business, Katie Hedrick Photography, and she has started a positive message campaign called “Beauty Is Sizeless.”
There is an ever-increasing number of suicides, self mutilations, eating disorders, and cases of depression or poor health due to low self-esteem; Beauty Is Sizeless has a goal to help women realize their value and inner beauty.
“Our mission is to spread the word that no matter how bad life may get, no one is worthless, and everyone is beautiful! We want to create a community where everyone is accepted and isn’t judged by their weight or outer appearance,” said Hedrick.
Hedrick says Beauty is Sizeless has had an overwhelming response since the debut of photos she took of Kailyn Lowry from Teen Mom 2. A few hours after the release of that image, starcasm.net interviewed Hedrick and posted an article which can be viewed at starcasm.net/archives/161967.
Hedrick is planning to create videos and do motivational speeches at schools to show how the media manipulates photographs and explain how it is possible to achieve model-worthy images without using photo editing software. She was a guest on Fitsmi.com radio to promote the campaign in July.
A website, sizeless.org, is almost complete. Each week will feature at least one new blog post and updated inspirational message. Fundraising is planned to enable travel to cities, and potentially countries, to hold open photo sessions with signature style. Various products will also be available for purchase on the website.
“We plan to give everyone the opportunity to join the campaign to help revolutionize society’s definition of beauty. Once we get everything set up we will send out an address to facilities that handle disorders and to crisis units for mental health. We also will be accepting digital art to include each week in our inspiration section,” said Hedrick.
For more information, or to help spread the word, share on Facebook, facebook.com/beautyissizeless, and Twitter at twitter.com/sizelessbeauty or on the web at sizeless.org. Connect with Katie at katehedrick.com, Facebook.com/katehedrickphotography or Twitter: @katelhedrick
I know what the young lady is talking about. I work with a young woman who I consider rather skinny, but she goes on and on about being fat. What do you say to someone like that? I tell her that she looks fine and that many guys would love to meet someone like her, but she needs to get past worrying about her weight, looks, etc. I try to reinforce her self-image by complimenting her. Sometimes she asks if I noticed anything different about her, but I’m terrible with that. I asked my friend Mark to compliment her on her new dress (I told him to fuss about how great the dress looked on her, but she didn’t know it!) I think Mark sent her self-image into the stratosphere, and we have always kept the secret.
A program like this young lady is starting would help women to get past their self-image which can destroy their self-confidence. We guys need to be less critical as well. I think women are more sensitive to words than men. If my wife called me fat, I would just laugh at her. If I called her fat, I had better be prepared to run. The reason this program will work on women is women need the reinforcement from others…like the lady at my work!