I am delighted to share with you ‘BeYOUtiful: Radiate confidence, celebrate difference and express yourself’, a book written by my constituent Shelina Janmohamed about ‘what it means to be beautiful’.

Shelina was inspired to write this book following a conversation with her daughter, and aims to encourage younger readers to celebrate ‘confidence, difference and everything that makes us feel happy in ourselves’.

As ideas of beauty are always changing, across cultures and time, Shelina demonstrates that ‘beauty can be what you want it to be’. She introduces a number of women who are all regarded as beautiful and challenged conventional ideas of beauty and encourages readers to do the same.

Crucially, the role of social media is also explored, enabling readers to look critically get images they are shown and form their own opinions. This is very topical, as there has been a lot of talk on this in Parliament recently and it aligns closely with the work my colleague, Dr Luke Evans, has been doing recently on body image, which I have supported. 

If you would like to find out more about this book, you can do so here.