Former “Germany’s Next Top Model” candidate Elena Carrière (27) posted an honest before and after photo on Instagram. Between the two photos lie ten kilograms, six years and a big change in her attitude towards body and health.

It’s an open secret that in the world of models there is still incredible pressure on external appearance. And even though model mom Heidi Klum (51) now focuses on “diversity” and bodies in all possible forms in her ProSieben show, it wasn’t always like this. In 2016, Elena Carrière started her modeling career on GNTM.

In an honest Instagram post, the 27-year-old talks about her body. On the left side of her collage, she looks significantly slimmer six years ago. The correct picture is current and shows Elena weighing ten kilograms more. At the time, she “obviously” lived an unhealthy lifestyle, she says, and writes: “The REALLY frightening thing I remembered is: I actually thought I was too ‘fat’ back then (on the left) https://www.bunte.de/stars/ star-life/stars-privat/.”

The influencer emphasises how much she had previously focused on being thin. “I remembered it like today, standing in front of the mirror and thinking: ‘Hmm, it could be even less’ … Wow. What a privilege – I really had little else to do in life than experiment with food and pay attention to how I looked. Back then, she wanted to belong to the thin ones. And there was something else besides weight: “Back then, I didn’t celebrate ‘becoming a woman’, nor did I do sports to be strong.” Today, everything is different.

Ex-GNTM model sends important appeal

Six years later, Carrière has a completely different attitude. “How grateful I am to be embodied today. To build a company that has a purpose. (…) To allow myself to eat whatever I can.”

And then she sends an important appeal to her 480,000 followers: “If you ever get into ‘critic mode’ again – check your privilege. YOU are allowed to live healthily, you have every opportunity to be the most vital form of your self. Use them, others can’t.