Princess Eugenie

Princess Eugenie of York got married last week in England. She is Prince Harry's cousin and she wore the most beautiful dress!

But what was really important about it was not even the front of the dress, but the back!

It turns out that when she was 12, Princess Eugenie had to have a major surgery for scoliosis. Scoliosis is a condition where your spine does not grow straight. It develops a bend, curve, or rotation, or a combination of those. I thought this was super interesting for two reasons. One, I have scoliosis in my lower back. For the past year or two, my doctor has watched it because it is one or two degrees under where they start treating it with a brace, but he thinks I am pretty near being done growing so we are hoping it will stay where it is and not get worse. Two, I have a friend, Shae, who has scoliosis and she has had a special treatment for it and works on awareness and screening and even wrote a kids' book about it.

Princess Eugenie picked her wedding dress specifically for what it would show--her surgery scar. This is important because it's a big part of who she is and she didn't feel like she needed to hide it. I loved what she said about it in a TV interview:

"I think you can change the way beauty is, and you can show people your scars...it’s really special to stand up for that."

What an awesome example of positive self and body image not only for herself but for anyone else who has scars that they might be self-conscious of, or who is dealing with scoliosis! She does not look at her scar as a negative thing, instead she looks at it as something beautiful.

Here is my friend Shae's website if you would like more information about scoliosis:

https://www.catchingthecurve.com/

#valYOUable