“Social media throws this ‘bounce back’ culture to us, which is so toxic in so many ways - and we don’t really take time to look at what our bodies have done for us,” McGrady adds. “Coming from the fitness industry, there was a lot of pressure put on me that were meant to sound like compliments: ‘Oh, you’re in fitness, you’ll have a small bump and you’ll bounce back right away.’ And I heard it from everybody,” says Scott. McGrady and Scott are both proud to play a role in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’s celebration of the body in all its forms, and are both outspoken about the unrealistic (and often unsafe) expectation on women to “bounce back” after pregnancy. I have to do things that may scare me a little bit - not only for me, but for other mamas out there, and for my son.” “My body may not look like it did last year or the year before, but this is the body that I have now, and I have to appreciate that. “I just did the most spectacular thing of my life,” she said.

“At first I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, no way, this is too soon, I’m not ready,'” McGrady, mom to 11-month-old Hudson, tells SheKnows. But then, she had an epiphany. Since then, she has posed for the issue multiple times - but this year felt special to McGrady, because she was barely six months postpartum at the time of the shoot, a prospect she admits felt a little nerve-wracking. Model Hunter McGrady, who also posed for this year’s issue, knows a thing or two about being outside the outdated, “traditional” beauty standards in 2017, the plus-sized model and body image activist was billed as the curviest SI swimsuit model ever. “They have really shifted the narrative of what beauty means to women.” “The thing about Sports Illustrated is that they celebrate beauty in all different ways,” Scott told SheKnows. So it should come as no surprise that this year’s issue is celebrating pregnant and postpartum bodies, including Kelly Hughes, the first model featured to have a C-section scar.

Last year alone, its three separate covers featured Naomi Osaka as the first Black female athlete, Megan Thee Stallion as the first rapper, and Leyna Bloom as the first transgender cover model. In the past few years, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has made groundbreaking strides in inclusivity.

With a team of women at the swimsuit issue’s helm, gone are the narrow and exclusive beauty standards once featured in its pages. Credit: Derek Kettela / Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated

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