Christian actress and influencer Sadie Robertson Huff, best known for starring in the A&E reality television show “Duck Dynasty,” is not mincing words when it comes to the body image struggles mothers face after having children.
During a recent episode of her “WHOA That’s Good” podcast, which aired on Feb. 26, the former reality star discussed the topic with her sister and two friends, noting that she is “not very for the bounce-back culture.”
Mrs. Robertson Huff shares two daughters—Honey and Haven, born in May 2021 and May 2023, respectively—with her husband, social media influencer Christian Huff. The couple tied the knot in November 2019 after dating for about a year.
During her podcast, she noted that she immediately had positive feelings about her body after giving birth to her children.
“I think that was because it was so much more than what I looked like,” she explained, recalling the experience. “I just birthed a child. I was like, ‘My body is awesome.’”
Three months later, however, she noticed her jeans and rings still weren’t fitting. “You’re starting to notice that your body is not the same as before,” she said. “You can start to feel a little insecure in that space.”
Post-Pregnancy Body Image
Mrs. Robertson Huff further lamented the notion that mothers should be able to achieve their pre-pregnancy bodies after giving birth.“I am so against the bounce-back culture. I just do not like that, that people are all like, ‘How fast did you bounce back?’” she said.
“I just think that that time of your life, especially right after you have your baby, is not to be focusing on what you look like and how you can bounce your body back,” the podcaster and author added. “It’s really for you to bond with your baby, and your body is supplying your baby’s needs, and there is so much that goes into that.”
“It’s so much bigger than just the way your body looks,” she declared, describing the major changes her body underwent after having her girls, including hormonal fluctuations, hair loss, and skin rashes. “I just felt like, OK, what is happening to my body—this is not my body—and just really uncomfortable in my skin,” she recollected.
After addressing her concerns with her doctor, she was told it would take at least nine months for her body to adjust after pregnancy.
Life Postpartum
Mrs. Robertson Huff said she was able to see a shift in her body at the nine-month mark.“Everything did just kind of fall back, and not, again, not back to the old normal but to a new normal,” she noted. “I really felt like myself, but I felt like myself in my new skin, and I felt so much more confident than even myself in my old skin.”
Mrs. Robertson Huff, who has been open about her previous struggles with eating and body dysmorphia, said she still occasionally grapples with her body image but noted that she was now in a place where she felt confident in her own skin.
“That doesn’t mean that some days we don’t struggle; it doesn’t mean that we don’t go through that ebb and flow of struggling with our body or even sometimes we get insecure about a little thing,” she said, referencing her lingering postpartum hair.
Perhaps most notably, however, she said she did notice a shift in her mindset in terms of adhering to stringent body ideals.
“After I had a baby, there’s stretch marks where there used to not be stretch marks, and things just look a little different and things change and all of a sudden the image of perfection that I had was gone,” she explained.
“So I wasn’t holding myself to a standard,” she continued. “My new standard was, like, healthy, my new standard was being confident in my skin,” she said, adding that she just wanted to be the best version of herself possible for her daughters.
