Shawn Johnson, the pint-sized American Olympic gymnast, has dropped some weight. Although it’s only 25 pounds, that’s a huge difference when you’re only 4’9!
In her career, Shawn Johnson had won three silver metals and a gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Games. The winning didn’t end there. The very next year she won the Mirror Ball on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” with partner Mark Ballas.
Despite all of Shawn Johnson’s success, public scrutiny took a toll on her. Media outlets would pinpoint her weight as a negative aspect.
“At my heaviest all the tabloids said some pretty hurtful things,” Johnson told USA Today.
By looking at her frame in her gymnast outfits, it was obvious that her muscle capacity held most of the weight. At the time of the Olympic Games, her body was at a mere 6% total body fat.
“That whole process kind of broke me down and taught me something,” Johnson said at the Olympic Media Summit on Monday. “People put too much emphasis on looks.”
Shawn Johnson hasn’t stepped away from training completely. She hopes to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games in London this summer, but this time with a stronger mental outlook.
“We##Q##re taught at such a young age that you can always be better and that you##Q##re never perfect and that you##Q##re never good enough. You find your worth in someone else and what they say just from having looked at you. It##Q##s hard. I was at the Olympic Games winning medals and I still doubted my image. I doubted what I looked like. That##Q##s sad. Girls should be taught different than that. I think everyone should be taught different than that.”
We’re rooting for Shawn for London 2012!
Photo Credit: Yahoo! Sports/Today
