Steph Claire Smith, Laura Henshaw open up about body image journey

An Aussie model has revealed the horrifying moment she witnessed with Victoria’s Secret models at a gym in New York.

The two women behind one of Australia’s most popular wellness brand’s have opened up about their body image journeys.

Laura Henshaw and Steph Claire Smith launched Kic – a health business focused on fuelling and moving your body rather than what appears on the scales — back in 2015.

While the brand has become a huge success, earning more than 2.5 million members and helping others kickstart their health and wellness journeys, the pair said they have still struggled with their own body issues.

It was a long road for the women to feel comfortable enough to speak about the experiences they’ve endured. Both worked in the modelling industry and fell foul to the toxic diet and exercise culture as a result.

The pair have been open about how the industry plagued them with Henshaw revealing exercise and what her next meal was going to be was her “Roman Empire” while Smith has said she once became upset with her mother for using olive oil while cooking.

But Henshaw has revealed it was a moment at a casting audition while working in Italy that really shook her about what was really important — and it wasn’t a number on the scales.

Steph Claire Smith and Laura Henshaw started Kic in 2015. Picture: Instagram

For a long time the 31-year-old said she was focused on the scales which she recognises now was unhealthy.

“My weight was the most important thing about me. I’d weigh myself twice a day and it would literally dictate the day that I had and how worthy I felt,” Henshaw said.

“My entire self worth was tied to the way that I look and how small I could get my body.”

Later, she was at a casting and filling out a form that asked questions about her measurements and she remembers anger bubbling inside of her.

“I was like, ‘Why do you care?’. I remember thinking this didn’t serve me anymore. I don’t want my worth to be measured that way,” she said, adding things that were actually important were how she made her friends feel and what she was studying at university.

“I called my agent and said I never want to do this again.”

She said now whenever she does photo shoots it’s solely for Kic and it’s always about who she and the brand is and not about the size of her body.

Smith remembers towards the end of her time modelling in New York, she was at an exercise class with four Victoria’s Secret Angels, that made her questioned how she was treating herself.

Both women had worked as models before starting the health and wellness business. Picture: Instagram

“I was definitely my worst kind of spot when it came to how I looked at myself and food and exercise,” Smith told news.com.au.

“And before the class got started, [the Victoria’s Secret Angels] were just kind of chatting to each other looking at themselves in the mirror, and I’m standing there as a new model in the market like aspiring to be like them.

“And they were picking apart their bodies and saying what they don’t like about themselves.”

She compared it to the scene in Mean Girls when the “Plastics” stood around a mirror saying what they didn’t like about themselves.

In that moment, Smith remembers thinking that society had put these women on a pedestal of perfection and even they were not happy with how they looked. She remembered a time where constant comparisons hadn’t taken over her life and she yearned for that time once again.

Steph has spoken about the toxicity of modelling industry. Picture: Instagram

She has spoken about the moment she realised she was negatively treating her body. Picture: Instagram

After their experiences, the two women started what was then known as Keep it Cleaner in 2015 before the women rebranded to Kic — a move they say allowed them to be bolder in speaking out about the toxicity of the health and fitness industry.

They wanted the health and wellness app to be a place of safety, for people to come to without judgment and curiosity about how to fuel and move their body.

That is why the Kic app doesn’t have a place for users to input their weight or track their calories. It’s simply filled with workouts and recipe suggestions. It was supposed to be a place to build confidence and steer people away from the idea that the size of their body had anything to do with their self worth.

That is why Henshaw and Smith use their platform to speak about the toxicity of diet and fitness culture.

“I think the rebrand allowed us to be bolder. But we’ve always had the exact same mission,” Smith said.

Laura Henshaw has also spoken out about her experiences. Picture: Instagram

“The reason why we launched in the first place was because we both felt like we could be vulnerable online to our communities that existed back then. And it was through that connection with them we learned that we weren’t alone in the kind of body image struggles that we were having.

“Our relationship with food and exercise, unfortunately, was an incredibly common one.”

However, Henshaw and Smith aren’t naive to the fact they’re in “socially acceptable” bodies. And, at first, they came up against a lot of questions of “how can you talk to this”.

Henshaw points out their experience shows that you have no idea what somebody is going through by simply looking at them.

“We have a platform and we completely acknowledge people followed us on social media, because of the way that we looked,” Henshaw said.

“But we have a choice, we can use this platform to like contribute to diet culture, or because we have this voice we can use this platform to help people not go down that same path we did.”

The pair are dedicated to using their platform to speak out about toxic diet and exercise culture. Picture: Instagram

The women, who have built an empire with the app that now involves an activewear range and ready-made meals, said not every day is perfect when it comes to body image.

Speaking out about their experiences and battling against toxic fitness and diet culture isn’t always an easy thing but the women said they’ve been on the journey for a long time and learned a lot.

“We’re in a place where we back ourselves,” Henshaw said. She added they may not get everything perfect every time and the trolls will always be there but helping others outweighs any fears that come with being vulnerable.