Becky G reveals how Latina stereotypes impacted her while growing up in the public eye

If somebody knows what it means to become a woman in front of the public eye is Becky G. The singer, actress, and businesswoman has been working in the entertainment industry since she was 14 years old.

Like many women in the industry, she has times where she looks back and revisits those overwhelming moments in which unrealistic beauty standards and stereotypes made her question her whole self.

During an interview for It Figures —Yahoo Life’s body image series about body confidence, body neutrality, and self-love — the Mexican-American star opened up about feeling pressure for her appearance.

© @iambeckyg

“I went through this transition of young girl to young woman in front of the whole world,” she tells Yahoo Life. “You’re exposed all the time — what you look like, how you speak, how you wear something. It definitely affected me, and it impacted how I viewed my own self.”

The proud Latina and LA native became the financial support for her family at a young age, which took a toll on her. “In Latin culture, you know, a lot of the women are very giving — you have to give to everyone else before we give to ourselves,” she explains. “And through therapy, I learned that it’s OK to work on myself, to do things that only I can benefit from, which is a healthy body.”

Becky learned how to find the balance between her career, personal life, and mental health. However, embarking on a fitness journey wasn’t easy, especially when the world expects all Latinas to be curvy.

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“The ‘why’ is very important to me. I think, a lot of times, for me as a young woman, the ‘why’ was something that was very superficial. It was to please what society expected me to look like,” the “Sin Pijama” singer says. “My mom is curvalicious, she gave it all to my sister, and I got none of it. And right now, we’re in a trend where being super curvy is awesome, so I feel like, well, I don’t have that.”

“There have been times where people have applauded my body for how great it looks, and little do they know I didn’t feel very healthy,” she told the publication. “I don’t think healthy is a look. It’s not a look for me; it’s a feeling.”

© Becky G

Becky G started to recognize that she doesn’t need validation and that she decides on her body. “It’s learning to love ourselves and accept ourselves for that uniqueness. That never goes out of style,” she says. “Unlearning the things that no longer serve us, which is comparing ourselves to what the society standard is today because, unfortunately, the truth is that it’s going to keep changing. And the why was so much bigger than just my physical body. It was what there was to gain emotionally and mentally.”