Miss Universe Harnaaz Sandhu has been making headlines for various raesons ever since she has been back home.
In one of her interviews, Harnaaz spoke about being body shamed on social media as she revealed that she has celiac disease, an immune reaction to eating gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye.
"I'm one of those individuals who was first bullied that 'she's too skinny' and now they bully me saying 'she's fat'. Nobody knows about my Celiac disease. That I can't eat wheat flour and many other things," she said.
Harnaaz, who has been globetrotting as part of her duties as the spokesperson of the Miss Universe Organization, said one's body undergoes a lot of changes when they live across different cities. "When you go to a village, you see changes in your body. And I went to New York for the very first time... It is a whole other world altogether."
The model said the noise around her body image doesn't hold any importance for her. "I'm someone who believes in body positivity and one of the Miss Universes for the very first time is going through that. On the platform of Miss Universe, we talk about women empowerment, womanhood, and body positivity.
"And if I am going through that... I know there are a lot of people who are trolling me and it's okay because that's their mindset, their stigmas, but there are a lot of other individuals who are trolled every day irrespective of their Miss Universe or not. I'm empowering them by making them feel that if I feel gorgeous, you are beautiful too," she said.
"For me everyone is beautiful. It's about how you represent yourself and what kind of ideology you have. Your features do not matter at one moment. If you think that I'm the most beautiful girl that's why I won Miss Universe, I'm sorry, you're wrong.
"I might not be the most beautiful (girl) but I might be one of the courageous and confident girls who believes even if I'm fat, even if I'm thin, it's my body, I love myself. I love the changes and you should appreciate it because not everyone can go through the changes. So be happy if you're going through changes. If you are facing challenges in life, you should be thankful because that means something good is going to happen."
Harnaaz was crowned Miss Universe 2021, making her the third entrant from India to bag the prestigious title after 21 years.
