Meet Nadia Aboulhosn, who's on the cover of the April 2016 issue of Women's Running.
She's a model.
She's also a runner; she runs three to four times per week and does bodyweight exercises at home when she’s super busy.
And she's kind of a big deal on Instagram.
Although she's often described as a plus-size model, Aboulhosn told BuzzFeed that she doesn't use that term to describe herself because she believes it creates a binary where one type of body is considered "normal" or "standard," and anyone who is bigger than that is considered not normal.
But regardless of terminology, it's not that common for fitness magazines to feature a diversity of bodies.
"It's because society sees fit people as being smaller ... People don’t think my body type is healthy," Aboulhosn said.
But Aboulhosn wants people to know that you can't tell how fit or active someone is simply by their size.
“We originally selected Nadia for our feature on fitness/fashion influencers, but we loved her energy so much, we knew we had to put her front and center on our cover," Women's Running Editor-in-Chief Jessica Sebor told BuzzFeed.
This is not the first time Women's Running has featured a plus-size cover model, and Sports Illustrated recently put one on their cover as well.
The August issue of Women's Running featured plus-size model Erica Schenk, and in February 2016, plus-size model Ashley Graham was on the cover of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue.
Although Aboulhosn is excited to see some progress in the diversity of bodies on magazine covers, she says that she hopes that we eventually stop using labels that make one kind of body "normal," and another kind abnormal.
"I'm just trying to normalize what should have already been seen as normal," she said.
Aboulhosn says she's gotten tons of messages from girls and young women telling her how refreshing it is to see her on the cover. And people online have been showing their support, too.
Aboulhosn said she believes that soon enough "normal" won't mean any one body type.
Nadia, you are our hero.
