Everyone please welcome my friend and fellow fit model Jas NaTasha Anderson to A Broadway Body: Continued Conversations! She’s an actress, model, and fit model in Los Angeles. Jas and I met on a fit job in the summer of 2024, have kept in touch ever since.
Jas’ openness and vulnerability throughout our conversation brought us both to tears, and our connection over what it was to grow up in the ‘90s and early 2000s in an era where small bodies were prioritized has led us down a path of deep unlearnings to embrace our bodies at whatever size they may fluctuate to be. Jas said she never lost a job because she was bloated one day, and I couldn’t agree with her viewpoint more. I hope our conversation inspires you to discover the confidence within yourself no matter the current shape/size of your body!
“It’s been empowering to be this size and to be booked as this size. To be bookable at this size is empowering because even though my mind still goes there, I can check myself and be like, ‘You’re gonna show up however you look tomorrow, and you’re still hired to be there for looking exactly how you look.’ You don’t have to do the whole charade.”
- Jas NaTasha Anderson
Jas NaTasha Anderson: So, for example, right now I'm a size 16, like 14/16 but I'm scaling closer to 16. Being hired for that all, my mind in general, just like whenever you have a booking, my thought process is like, “Let me detox. I'm going to stop eating at five this day. I'm gonna, you know, only have soup and salad this week.” I did that all last week –
Megan Gill: No.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: – because I had a runway show on Tuesday. And so, I ate like crazy over the holidays.
Megan Gill: As we should!
Jas NaTasha Anderson: As we should! No, and I didn't hold back, you know?
Megan Gill: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Like, I'm back in The South. I had Bojangles. I had like, you know, all this stuff. But with that in mind, knowing that I have to be in swim, I was like, I know that I'm definitely like, at least ten pounds over. And so, I did do like a little weekly detox, and I dropped the ten, and it wasn't actual fat loss, you know, it's just crap.
But anyway, I'm saying that to say that like I still kind of have that in my mind sometimes where I'm just like, “Oh, yeah. I booked something tomorrow. Let me start myself today,” and then it's like, “But you were booked to be the size that you are right now.”
Megan Gill: Mm-hmm, and why is that so ingrained in our head from this culture that is obsessed with being smaller than – just being small in general. Oh My god, yeah, I appreciate you sharing that, truly.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, but it's been empowering to be the size and be booked as the size. To be bookable at this size has been empowering because even though my mind still goes there, I can check myself and be like, “You're going to show up however you look tomorrow, and you're still hired to be there for looking exactly how you look,” which we talked about before.
Megan Gill: Yeah, and therefore you don't have to not eat or drink –
Jas NaTasha Anderson: You don’t have to do the whole charade.
Megan Gill: Yes, yes, the charade! That's exactly –
Jas NaTasha Anderson: You don’t have to do it. That is a fucking choice.
Megan Gill: And that there's a world in which we don't do it. And I'll share that I don't know how – I really don't know how that I’ve gotten to this place, and I know it could very well be a temporary place. But I've given up the charade, and I'm never ever gonna go back to it because of my, now, awareness of how it impacted me mentally.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah. That's amazing, though.
Megan Gill: And it feels weird to say that because I just – I don't know. Again, I think that how would I feel if I were on like the upswing, and how would I feel if I were like 20 pounds heavier, like I was two years ago or whatever? Would I feel the same way I do now, and like is the freedom correlated to the fact that I've been able to maintain the same – my body hasn't changed much in the last year or so, and is that because of the freedom? Or is that just because I'm not obsessing about it anymore? Or is it just chance? Is it honestly just like – I don't know, I guess these are just like questions that go through my brain, because I've fully given up the charade. And what I want for all of us is to fucking give it up.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Completely.
Megan Gill: And so, it's really awesome to hear that you're at least like, like – of course those thoughts are gonna pop up. They pop up for me too, don't get me wrong.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: But just don't entertain them.
Megan Gill: Yeah, we're not doing it. And granted it sucks because you're right. Ugh, at the end of the day, this is our job, and we technically have to be within a range of like this specific body that this client is booking. But truly how much is – so I understand when you're like, “I need to get back to this place.” It's also like – agh, agh! This is the part that I'm grappling with. It's like how do we still maintain work in this field and just not…
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Have those fears?
Megan Gill: Yeah, and not put ourselves through that, or not even have to “get back,” even though we maybe know. It's like, ugh! And I feel like it's systemic. It's the industry at large. I don't know that we can control anything about that, but if I could shift anything, I feel like that's what I would want to shift.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, I think that I'm so appreciative of the whole, you know, body positivity movement because the industry is a totally different one than, you know, what so many people grew up in and what we saw growing up and, you know, we have representation. We never had that, you know, before.
And so, I think that I'm thankful that we are in it now where bodies are celebrated and where they are booking models that look like real people, and I really appreciate that. I don't know that I would have a job if, you know, if it was not that.
Megan Gill: Same, girl.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah. So, yeah, I really contribute a lot of that to just where the world is now and people speaking out about it and wanting to see real people and reflections of themselves, and we need to have representation.
Megan Gill: Absolutely.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: But I think what has helped me a lot is, like I said, I signed with my agency at a size 12, and now being a size 16, having that fear of, like, “Oh, they're going to drop me,” you know? And they just check in, “What's your size right now? What are your measurements?” and then they submit me for that. And then, “What are your measurements? Okay, we're gonna submit her for this now.” And that in itself has just been so beautiful, and I so appreciate them for that.
Megan Gill: Oh, god. Yeah, dude.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Because there's real fear of, like, “Shit, I'm not gonna book anything anymore.” And it's been the opposite! My bookings have actually gone up, and it's been amazing!
Megan Gill: Hell yeah! And how incredible to, again, to be able to prove to yourself in that way of like, “Oh my god, I really truly can be myself and embrace who I am.”
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, at any size, whatever is going on. Yeah,
Megan Gill: And also I'm so glad you shared that about your agent just fully supporting you through that and not even making it a thing. Yep. I had a similar experience where I've been with my fit agency for five years now. When I first moved to LA, or when I first signed with them, I was pretty – right now I’m 8/10-leaning. When I first signed with them, I was about the same, a true 8/10-leaning, in there. And then, about a year later, the pandemic hit, of course, and I gained weight, and I was terrified to tell her.
Megan Gill: And I remember I was still going in for castings for – I was, like, 10/12, maybe 12-leaning at that point, and I was still going in for castings for like specs for size 8.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah.
Megan Gill: And I was so terrified of just having that conversation with her from like past trauma with people in like positions of authority and power that I didn't even want to bring it up. But the second I did, and I was like, “Hey, Katie, I need to be remeasured! I've gone up a size or two or I don't know.” And she was like, “Totally cool. All good.” And kind of similar thing, she didn't make it a thing. We remeasured, and we moved on, and that's when I started to get more clients on my roster as well.
I carry that with me every single day. The gratitude that she, in this very specified industry, where our measurements are what are getting us the castings and ultimately booking us the job, that she, like your agent, didn't even freaking think twice. Like, thank you.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah. And it's just like, “Okay, cool, now we know what to submit her for.”
Megan Gill: Yep, yep, yep, yep. It’s that simple, and that's how it should be.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Because I think there was a world where that was not the case. And so, even though, I mean, I wasn't in the industry at that time, but of course you know, and you hear. And so, there are these fears that are just kind of there.
Megan Gill: Yeah, and honestly, even with other agencies who knows what's going on? Thank god for these two specific agencies, but who knows what's going on at other agencies?
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Oh, yeah, I don't know, and I really hope that they also, you know –
Megan Gill: Have that grace?
Jas NaTasha Anderson: – have that experience, yeah. I'm definitely thankful.
Megan Gill: Me too.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: I think that we lucked out in getting, you know, with just really good people that are genuinely just really kind, really lovely people.
Megan Gill: Yeah, and just like us because of us. Like sure, yeah, we're bookable, but it's cool that you've now seen that you are bookable at this size and this size. And same for me. It's like, “Oh cool! This is amazing.”
Jas NaTasha Anderson: And they're just so excited to submit you and, you know, book you out.
Megan Gill: Yeah, it's like what a lovely experience to kind of debunk some of that beauty-standard, diet-culture bullshit we've been fed our whole lives.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, oh, my gosh. Yeah.
Megan Gill: Yeah. It's so weird because this whole thing for me, this exploration of what is it to move the conversation away from centering what we look like and centering the shape of our bodies and all of the stuff, moving it away from that. Yet, at the same time, the importance of having the representation and the fact that we can't really escape it.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah.
Megan Gill: I'm having this, like – I don't know. I don't think it's escapable, I guess. So it's like how do we start to make these shifts for ourselves and talk about this more so that hopefully if someone's listening to this and they're, like, “Oh, my agent made me feel like shit because I went up a size,” hopefully they can now have the discernment to, in that next conversation, advocate for themselves, and/or maybe get a new agent, I don't know but, you know?
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, exactly. Or that because that probably needs to happen if they're judging them for that. Like, no one's body is perfect. We're not machines. It's not going to stay the same ever. Like you said, you're going to fluctuate. And some more than others. I feel like I've fluctuated all my adult life, you know? But, yeah, I don't know.
Megan Gill: I hear you. Do you find with fitting specifically, because they're only taking photos internally, do you find that when you show up, sometimes it's like, maybe you, like, don't have makeup on, or, like, for me, I have some – and this is so silly and cosmetic, and 'm working on it, but I get some acne on my back, and sometimes if I'm in certain garments, fitting brings up these little insecurities that maybe are only brought up because I'm on display in front of people that I'm all of a sudden insecure about. Do you ever come up against things like that?
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, that's a really good question because you literally are, like, standing there in front of sometimes a group of ten people, and they're all just, like, staring at your breasts or staring at your –
Megan Gill: Butt! [Laughs]
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, and it's like, this is really invasive! [Laughs] It's like every day when you get dressed in the morning, you don't have ten people in your house watching you get dressed. But that's what this job is.
Megan Gill: Mm-hmm.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: And so, I think in the beginning, I did have a little anxiety about that and insecurity as far as – I can't think of any specific insecurities that would come up, but definitely the feeling of, “Ahh!” Like, “Oh no! They're gonna find something!” you know? Or, you know, just the constant fear of, “Oh, this is going to be my last time here because I'm too fat or too whatever,” you know?
And then when they're like, “How do you feel? Is it okay? Is it digging anywhere?” And then, especially if you're exactly what they're looking for as far as measurements, then I'm like, “Hey, you know what, this actually can be let out,” and then you kind of take charge, and they're giving you that platform to do that. And you're like, “Okay, this should be like this, or this arm loop is too far.” And so, then I feel like I found my confidence in that because, again, we are there to be ourselves, and we're there to be the size that we are to help them sell a better product.
And so, I think what it was is the last one that we did together, the swim one, having everyone just turning you around and, you know, you're truly on display.
Megan Gill: Yeah, in a bathing suit. And there were men –
Jas NaTasha Anderson: There were men there.
Megan Gill: – there with that account. A lot of times there aren't, so I feel like that also, for me –
Jas NaTasha Anderson: I think that was my first time having a man in the room.
Megan Gill: Like, “Ahh, why is this extra weird?”
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, it was a little…
Megan Gill: They're very, very respectful, like the sweetest, but it's just a little bit like eek.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, it’s a little – yeah. I think that just naturally you feel more comfortable in front of women. Like, especially when you are, you know, having any insecurities about that. But I'm trying to think of what it was. Oh, yes. Insecurities, right.
So I have an insecurity about my legs are longer and my torso is shorter. So normally that's something that, in a swimsuit or in something where I might feel kind of awkward, but as they're asking me questions and stuff now, I'm just like, “This doesn't need to be taken up. My torso is shorter, so don't worry about that.”
Megan Gill: Yes, I experience the same thing!
Jas NaTasha Anderson: “It fits on me a little bit differently than it would on the normal size 16.” And they're like, “Oh, okay, great. Thank you,” or like, “In here, I'm like, oh, I'm a little more narrow here, so you don't have to let this out or anything.” And so, that has kind of helped me to take control over it and not mind those insecurities.
Megan Gill: Mm-hmm, embrace them instead.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Embrace them because, again, you're helping people. You're helping everyone. Everyone wants to feel beautiful when they wear this thing.
Megan Gill: Absolutely, and there are going to be people, women, whoever is wearing the garment, truly, that have those longer legs, and there are going to be people that have shorter legs and have this and that. It’s like so all of our bodies are so different. So I love that you're bringing this up, because I'm like, “Yes, yes, yes!” I've also been right there with you.
It's been really an empowering way for me to embrace my body and everything about her because I'm so grateful to be this person chosen to fit this for everyone in America that's going to go to Target and buy these clothes. Like, god, that's just really cool.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: And be honest about it, and be honest about like, “Hey –.” Because in the beginning, I felt uncomfortable speaking up about things. And so, there were certain things that didn't necessarily fit right, but I'm like, “Oh, that feels okay.” And then like hearing the other more experienced girls say like, “Well, it doesn't feel…,” and I'm just like, “Oh, they can talk to them like that? I didn't know that was a thing.”
Megan Gill: Yeah, same.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Not that they're rude, but just very direct. And so, now I'm like, “Hey, this can go here.” Like, “I need more coverage on the butt.” And I'll be like, “Is this supposed to be this cheeky?” And they're like, “Oh, no.” And I'm like, “Okay, let's bring it down a little bit,” you know? It has been such a positive experience. And I didn't know what it would be, but I'm really happy that it was a really positive one.
Megan Gill: Oh, my gosh. Yes, truly, and same. It's like I have to attest this work to the place I am in as far as how I'm relating to my body and my body confidence and all of that stuff now, too. Because I'm just sitting here thinking all of these things, even like you were saying, your general confidence. I was like, you know? I've always been like a confident person, but there's a different air about my confidence now, and I think a lot of it is being able to like is because I've learned, in a fitting setting, to be able to speak up and advocate for the fit, and therefore I'm now learning how to advocate for myself in my life and use my voice to speak up for myself in other areas of my life. And it's like how does that compute, but it makes sense because we're just practicing it so much over here in this space that and in these spaces that of course it’s translating over here, and how cool is that?
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, it really is. I definitely feel that. Like that confidence showing up in all other areas as well, yeah.
Megan Gill: Oh my god, this is just so fun to talk about! I've never spoken about this stuff with another model before!
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, I know, because, I mean, I feel like models don't talk about this, But then also, I feel like I've connected with the girls who I feel like I'm, like, friendly or friends with, but, you know, we don't hang out that often on a one-on-one basis.
Megan Gill: And divulge into all of this nitty gritty. Oh my gosh, okay, one other thing that you said earlier, I felt this hit me. When you were, like, we equate being bigger to not getting the job or not being hirable or –
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Less than.
Megan Gill: Mm-hmm, being literally less then. And I just can't with that, and I just hate that that's what our experience is, what society has conditioned us, and a lot of it probably is when we were – the era we grew up in, too.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: A hundred percent. Like, everyone was like a double zero.
Megan Gill: Oh, my god, yes. And then I mean, in middle school and high school, a lot of times in my dance classes, at school, I was a taller, bigger kid. And it was like, “But why don't I look like that?” And so, all of this, the years and years of this conditioning, it's like, well, yeah, it makes sense that this is showing up for us in this work, that we're in these rooms thinking, “Oh my god, if I get any bigger, they're not going to want me.” Because how many times has that –
Jas NaTasha Anderson: And that thinking contributes to you getting bigger because you're now stressed.
Megan Gill: Yes, and hyper focused on it.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: And hyper focused, and maybe you're, you don't cope well with that. And you might be overeating, or like doing whatever, and yeah.
Megan Gill: Or restricting, and then it's making the problem worse, and actually – yeah, yeah. Yep. Oh my god, yes. And it's just devastating for me to – not for me, but it's just devastating.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, I definitely can relate.
Megan Gill: I can't handle how devastating it is that that's like what so many of us – and I have to believe that it's in a lot of different shapes and sizes, just innately what we believe about ourselves.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Oh, of course. Yeah.
Megan Gill: And I feel like we are moving away from that as a society, which is really cool.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, we are.
Megan Gill: And go Gen Z! All of these young kids, I can't stop thinking about them as well. It's like I want them to have a different experience than we had, right? So that they're not dealing with this shit now in their adult life.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: Yeah, I feel like they already kind of are because there is so much representation, but then obviously there's like the whole other side of social media, and that's a whole other thing. But I feel like they definitely are seeing more bodies than we did. I remember being, like, 12 and 5'7 and everyone else was still, you know, 5 feet, and, again, double zero, and little, teeny, tiny, teeny boppers. And I always felt out of place and big because I was tall. I wasn't overweight, but you kind of mentally think that, you know, if you are just much taller than everyone else. So yeah, it definitely started then.
I was thinking about this yesterday. I was watching a podcast; I don't know if you've seen it. Raven-Symoné has a podcast with her wife.
Megan Gill: I haven't, but I love this.
Jas NaTasha Anderson: I don't know her wife's name, but it's such a great podcast.
Megan Gill: Okay, I'll have to check it out and yeah, share it!
Jas NaTasha Anderson: God, I forget her name, but anyway, this comedian was talking to her about how, you know, she was like, “I don't have to work as hard or do as much because of you, because you walked so that we can, you know, fly.” And it's so effing true, and I commented under saying that I literally am in LA pursuing what I am because I saw Raven. I saw someone that looked like me, and I saw that she was not a size zero. “She looks like me, and she's on TV, and she's on Disney, and she's doing all the things that I have always dreamed of doing!” And so, that was just such a beautiful moment of remembering that yesterday and, wow, I actually am here because I saw that and believed that I could. And so, to think that I can also have that impact on someone, anyone, just one person, you know?
Jas NaTasha Anderson is an actress and curve model based in Los Angeles, CA. She’s represented by Luxe Fit Models and Brand Models and Talent. She’s an ambassador for the brands Yitty and MICAS and was most recently seen in the impactful “Hims and Hers” commercial for Super Bowl 2025.
Email: jasminenatashaanderson@gmail.com
Instagram: @iamjasnatasha
While I’m not a licensed therapist, registered dietician, or medical health professional and cannot speak to body image topics from a clinical, trauma-informed place, I am an expert of lived experience. I’m an academic of my own body, and I’m passionate about facilitating conversations with other humans about their relationships with their bodies. I believe it’s important to continue conversations about healthy body image in creative spaces as a means to heal individuals as well as the collective whole. But just know the information presented in this medium is not professional mental health advice or medical advice, and any questions or concerns you have should always be directed to your health providers.
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