Actor Taapsee Pannu urged women not to torture themselves to meet unrealistic beauty standards as she recalled her struggle to get a flat midriff.
The actor shared a note on her Instagram story on Sunday and said she kept torturing herself in an attempt to get rid of lower belly fat.
"I remember I had this obsession because while growing up, I was extremely fit, but I never understood why the lower belly fat always stayed. I worked out intensely almost to an extent that I overpushed myself, and rightly said, when you overpush yourself, it rings an alarm in your brain that your body needs protection," she wrote.
"So instead of actually losing water retention, the body starts retaining it and then that lower belly fat, which might actually not just be fat, it's also water retention, it stays, and it increases by overworking out, which I really believe people should not do," she added.
Taapsee said it is healthy to have some belly bulge and requested women not to go hard on themselves. She credited her nutritionist for explanation. "It cannot look like any other girl, so you need to accept this. I accepted it very late after really torturing myself, and then I realised that there are some days it happens and there are some days it doesn't happen," she said.
"My nutritionist Munmun Ganeriwal explained it to me how it's actually important to have that little bit of fat, a little bit of water retention under the belly because that's where your reproductive organs are, and they need protection, and by virtue of being a woman, you need that protection...It's healthy for you. So just to get those picture-perfect Instagram pictures, please don't torture yourself. It's supposed to be healthy to have that little bit of bulge and have that fat there. Please don't torture yourself," she added.
On the work front, Taapsee was last seen in Assi (2026). Her upcoming project is Devashish Makhija’s Gandhari.
