You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Zainab Bedawi.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program and I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Zanab Bedawi. My guest here in New York is the British model, actress and activist Jamila Jamil. After breaking into the US

in the critically acclaimed comedy series The Good Place, she's been getting attention for taking

on stars like the Kardashians for their promotion of diet products to millions of young

women on social media. It's her campaign to make us feel better about our bodies working.

Jamila Jamil, welcome to Hard Talk.

Hello, thanks for having me.

So you were in your early 20s.

You decided you wanted to go into music presenting

and you get this big break.

You become the solo female host of a very prestigious show on radio in the UK.

How important is it for you to break barriers?

I think it's very important for me to break barriers.

I come from a particularly erased people.

You know, you just don't see South Asians in positions of

privilege very often, especially not in mainstream media. And so it's something that means a lot to me

because I was very damaged, I would say, by not seeing anyone like me that I could look up to when I was a

child. It made me develop a kind of self-hatred because I felt like I had no worth because I couldn't

see worth in anyone

else similar to me.

Everyone else was quite Eurocentric in their features and they were all white and had long blonde

...