Kira Mengistu, a current contestant on Clayton Echard’s season of The Bachelor, is also a physician in the outside world and when not inside the Bachelor mansion and vying for Clayton’s heart.
Therefore, as a professional in her field, Kira knows all about body image, obesity, and underweight individuals and the struggles that come with any or all of those.
Kira Mengistu provides insight about body image
Because Kira was a contestant on the show, and she is a physician, viewers feel like she could weigh in on both sides of the issue.
Kira took to her Instagram page to record a video about body image and body complexity. On it, she discussed that The Bachelor might want to think about diversifying the look of contestants in the near future, as well as the fact that your body size isn’t all that contributes to your health.
Kira titled her video My two cents on body diversity on #thebachelor.
“Body inclusivity is a pretty hot topic in Bachelor Nation most recently highlighted in the notorious TikTok as well as the Bachelor article,” she said.
The Bachelor franchise, body image, and inclusivity
The TikTok that Kira referred to involved a 30-year-old contestant named Caroline Cronin, from Massachusetts, whom Bachelor producers said they needed to see “standing up” as well as her face. Allegedly, after they saw her body, she never heard from them again.
The Bachelor article that Kira mentioned was one that referred to Clayton’s last group date, where the women were in a circle as they discussed hardships they’d gone through.
It also stated that while The Bachelor franchise has done better on diversity when it comes to race, they have not done better on body diversity.
In Kira’s video, she went on to explain, “Essentially I believe that viewers and contestants would benefit from seeing more diverse body sizes on their screen. I also think that we need to have more healthy conversations around body image and size than I saw in this last episode.”
Kira then explained, “When it comes to weight and body size, the catch phrase that best describes my views is ‘healthy at most sizes’ which is to say that the extremes of body weight are not healthy. However, if you’re somewhat underweight or somewhat overweight, you can still be perfectly healthy.”
Kira ended her video as she said, “Health is so much more complex than weight. To be truly healthy, you also have to take care of your emotional, spiritual, and social health.”
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8/7c on ABC.