Though she took three silver medals and one gold home from the 2008 Beijing Olympics thanks to her dedication and some seriously enviable lower body strength, gymnast Shawn Johnson is back - and 25 lbs lighter than you probably remember. After taking home the gold four years ago, Johnson competed on ABC's Dancing With The Stars, going so far as to claim the Mirror Ball Trophy at age 17, but even before she tore her ACL in 2010, DWTS viewers were highly critical of her weight, which seemed to skyrocket since she competed in Beijing. Can't a girl just take some time to, you know, not train for the Olympics without being accused of letting herself go?
"At my heaviest all the tabloids said some pretty hurtful things," said Johnson, who's taken off nearly a fifth of her weight, from what I can gather. "That whole process kind of broke me down and taught me something," Johnson said Monday at the Olympic Media Summit. "People put too much emphasis on looks."
Fox News may have pegged her knee injury as the elephant in the room during the press conference, but everyone knows it's really her shrinking frame. Still, while Shawn may be back to her competition weight, that doesn't mean her self-esteem is any more in-tact - Johnson, now 20, says she's always battled weight issues, even when she was on top of the world.
"We're taught at such a young age that you can always be better and that you're never perfect and that you're never good enough," the 4-foot-nine gymnast said. "You find your worth in someone else and what they say just from having looked at you. It's hard. I was at the Olympic Games winning medals and I still doubted my image. I doubted what I looked like. That's sad. Girls should be taught different than that. I think everyone should be taught different than that."
Though Shawn got back into shape fairly quickly, especially considering her 2010 knee surgery required a 6-month recovery period, she hopes she'll grab a spot in the 2012 Olympic games.
"I'm getting stronger on a daily basis," she told Fox Sports. "I'm excited for June. This time around, I've taken a whole new approach and mentality."
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