NEED TO KNOW
- Ilona Maher made a video about how good it feels to be strong, encouraging her fans to “try it”
- The Olympic rugby star flexed her muscles as followers praised her messages of body positivity
- She often uses her platform to celebrate strong and athletic bodies amid beauty standards that celebrate only one body type
Team USA rugby player Ilona Maher is loving her strength.
On Sunday, July 13, the Olympic bronze medalist, 28, posted a video on TikTok showing off her toned physique and boasting that being strong is so much better than “skinny.”
“‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’… Uh, y’all tried being strong? I feel good. I feel well fed. I feel ready to take on anybody,” she said while flexing her muscles in the camera. “You guys gotta try this s—. It’s a different level. I’m feeling…woo! I love it.”
“And also, have you guys tasted tiramisu? Because that s—… my God,” she quipped.
In the comments section, fans and followers of Maher praised her continued messages of body positivity and using her platform to be a role model. “‘I feel well fed’ both physically and mentally I see. What a strong queen 💪🏻” a fan said.
“Ilona is my favorite Barbie,” one follower wrote before another commented, “Strong is such a beautiful type of feminine 💖”
Another user added, “You’re helping us raise a whole generation of little girls that are going to be a whole different breed. Love this.”
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Earlier this year, Maher let it be known in another TikTok video that having a “bigger body” is just fine as social media continues to be saturated with “thin” celebrities and weight-loss aids.
“I feel like every time I open up social media nowadays I’m hit with an ad for a weight loss supplement or I see a thin celebrity is even thinner,” she said in the Feb. 25 clip. “Or recently I’ve been getting before and afters where the before is a gorgeous gorgeous girl and the after is also a gorgeous girl but almost making it seem like that before wasn’t worthy.”
“And here I am with another gentle but firm reminder that it is okay to exist in a bigger body. A lot of us are not meant to be small. I’m not meant to be small. This big old frame, I’m supposed to be 200 lbs., which is what I am now,” she continued. “I just think we’re getting this messaging that this is what’s right, this is what’s beautiful and it’s just not the case. There’s beauty in so many shapes and sizes.”
“I know I share these messages a lot but I just don’t see a stop to this,” she added. “I think it’s gonna be constant so I encourage you all to take the brave step and really appreciate your body and maybe dive deeper into how you think it should be and what it means to take care of it.”
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lona Maher at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Amy Sussman/Getty
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Maher is often outspoken about normalizing all body types. Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, she went viral for shutting down a commenter who criticized her weight and BMI.
“I bet that person has a 30% BMI,” wrote one commenter — who has since deleted their account — on one of Maher’s TikTok videos.
Body Mass Index — or BMI — is a formula where a person’s weight (in kilograms) is divided by the square of their height (in meters), and that number is used to sort people into four categories: underweight, healthy, overweight or obese. However, the use of BMI is controversial among healthcare workers as it was developed in the mid-19th century based on problematic racial and societal biases and does not consider a person’s ethnicity, gender or body makeup.
“BMI doesn’t tell you what I can do. It doesn’t tell you what I can do on the field. How fit I am. It’s just a couple of numbers put together,” Maher replied. “It doesn’t tell you how much muscle I have, or anything like that. So yeah, I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight.”
“I’ve said it before, I’m 5-ft.-10-in., 200 lbs, and I have about — and this is an estimate — about 170 lbs of lean mass on me. Do that math in your head. You probably can’t.”
Maher ended her video with a final message to the critic: “Alas, I’m going to the Olympics — and you’re not.”