Lena Dunham Gained 24 Pounds And Couldn’t Be Happier

Image by Getty Image
You can scroll all day, but you wont find a green juice, a yoga matt, or makeup tips on Lena Dunham’s Instagram. Unlike most celebrities, the creator of “Girls” doesn’t use her social media to show off a glamorous, perfect life. Rather, she uses it to discuss the reality of political, feminist, and personal struggles.
The actor, director and producer is no stranger to discussing taboo subjects in the public eye. Her fearless honesty and realism is plastered all over her social media (check out her candid and organic Instagram here.) A Tuesday morning post addressing her weight gain exemplifies this (love her or hate her) remarkable commitment to honesty and openness.
On July 10th 2018, Dunham became her own TMZ-styled paparazzo, posting a “before and after” collage of her change in weight and physical appearance between April 2017 and now. Dunham went through a public break-up with boyfriend of 5 years Jack Antonoff as well as a major medical procedure during that period.
She highlighted the contrast between public acceptance versus self-hatred when she was 24 pounds lighter, and the public disapproval versus the self-confidence and happiness she feels at 24 pounds heavier.
In making this distinction, Dunham succeeds in teaching a valuable lesson that our society, manipulated by unattainable standards of beauty, needs to be reminded of the value of mental health over social acceptance.
Dunham is acting as an advocate for more self-love and self-appreciation, and we’re in. She says she’s “happy, joyous, and free” now. Sounds like a pretty great reason to join the body acceptance movement.
Nicola Lewis is a summer intern at the Forward, writing for the life section. You can reach her at [email protected]
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ADL upgrades 19 colleges’ antisemitism ‘grades,’ as some enact new policies
-
Fast Forward Brown U leaders praise Jewish life on campus as Trump expected to slash $500M
-
Opinion The ADL reversed its support for Trump’s student deportations. You should too
-
Fast Forward Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block some weapons sales to Israel
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.