"I'm never going to starve myself for a part."

A Contemporary Heroine

Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards
Source

One of the very few non-conformists in Hollywood, Jennifer Lawrence, makes it a point to declare her distaste in body shaming. She not only refuses to conform to the unrealistic standards, but her attempts to stand up for herself and others in a similar position displays her great heroism.

During a recent Hunger Games event, Lawrence was asked by a fan's father for her advice to young girls struggling with body image.

"I experienced it in high school before I was famous. We see this airbrushed perfect model and then you don't look like that...

"You have to look past it--you look how you look, and be comfortable. What are you going to do? Be hungry every single day to make other people happy? That's just dumb."

A hero's general characteristics are strength and bravery. By stepping out of the societal norms, Jennifer takes these characteristics by storm.

When the Hunger Games star was asked to lose weight for her role in the movie, she quickly refused. Despite comments and criticism for her weight, she does not cave and speaks out, building her role as a symbolic model for healthy body image.

"I'm never going to starve myself for a part," Lawrence told Elle magazine for a feature in the December edition. "I don't want little girls to be like 'Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I'm not going to eat dinner'... I was trying to get my body to look fit and strong--not thin and underfed."

Lawrence not only wants to better society, but her clear goals consist of being a much needed positive female role model to young girls. Her strong ability to fight the prototype greatly achieves this; she has become an exemplar and a greatly respected heroine to youth.

Her commitment to her cause is prominant, and without hesitation, she stands up for herself, sending a message to youth everywhere. When Jennifer was shamed based on her weight on the show Fashion Police, she was the opposite of discouraged.

"I think it should be illegal to call someone fat on TV," she told Barbara Walters in an ABC interview. "There are shows like Fashion Police that are showing these generations of young people to judge people based on all the wrong values and that its OK to point at people and call them ugly or fat. They call it "fun" and say "welcome to the real world"--and that should be the real world, its going to continue being the real world if we keep it that way. We have to stop treating each other like that and calling each other "fat"."

Lawrence has become a much respected role model and a contemporary heroine--impacting the world with her stand against unhealthy conformism.