People used to say I look like a boy, flat screen: Ananya on skinny shaming

Ananya Panday has opened up about her struggle with skinny shaming way before she entered the film industry. The actor said the nasty comments about her appearance instilled a sense of self-doubt during her formative years and affected her confidence.

Hyderabad: Actor Ananya Panday, who is relentlessly working towards spreading positivity and eradicating social media bullying, has revealed that she was subjected to mean comments about her physical appearance. The actor said, from being called a 'boy' to 'flat screen', she has endured it all.

Being the daughter of Chunky Panday and Bhavana Pandey, Ananya was no novice to the spotlight before she made her debut with Student of the Year 2 in 2019. In a recent interview with a webloid, the Khaali Peeli actor recalled the time when she became a victim of trolling for the first time and how it affected her back then.

"I don’t remember the exact time but I remember there used to be pictures of me with my parents. At that time, I wasn’t an actor. I would go out with my parents and as I said, I was very thin. People used to say I look like a boy, a flatscreen and all those kinds of things," Ananya told the webloid.

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Ananya said the nasty comments from unknowns hurt her at that time because "those are the times when you are forming your self-confidence and you are learning to love yourself." The actor also said that she had started doubting herself but now, slowly, she has reached a point where she is just focussed on accepting herself.

On a related note, Panday launched her initiative, So Positive, on World Social Media Day in June 2019, just days after an Instagram user accused her of lying about her admission to University of Southern California (USA) in her interviews. The campaign aims at spreading awareness about social media bullying and introduce measures that can be taken in order to deal with it.