A woman who was branded "piggy" by cruel school bullies has had the last laugh - by becoming a bikini model.
Diane Frick, 36, said she was picked on as a teenager with classmates making jokes about her “pimply skin, frizzy hair and bad clothes”.
Traumatised by the taunts, she decided to seek help from a cognitive behavioural therapist - and it's turned her life around.
As an adult, Diane, from Melbourne, Australia, wasn’t “massively overweight” - but she did have poor eating habits and wasn’t exercising much.
She decided to change her lifestyle when she found a number of inspiring bikini model competitor photos, the Daily Star reports.
Diane said: “I was always a chubby kid and was bullied my entire childhood. The bullies in school made my life hell and I'd get called fat and ugly every day.
“I would get called names like ‘piggy’ due to being overweight. They made songs about me and would sing that I was ‘fat to the bone’ to the tune of ‘bad to the bone’.”
“I remember I was sick on the couch in late 2018 with the flu and feeling sorry for myself, when I started Googling all the girls I wanted to look like.
“They were all bodybuilding competitors, so I started finding out more about that and eventually landed on a coach who prepped bikini competitors.”
Diane loved the gruelling training schedule and level of structure to her diet which saw her body change over time.
Her transformation went onto encourage her to enter an Australian INBA (International Natural Bodybuilding Association) event in 2019.
She added: “I never imagined I could be proud of my body. I would always wear clothes that covered everything and was so hateful and ashamed of myself.
“So for that bullied girl to transform, not only physically but mentally, and be able to stand on stage in a bikini and ask professionals to judge her body is massive.”
The fitness queen now feels better than ever after dropping three dress sizes and going from having 34.7% body fat to just 12%.
She continued: “I was crowned the overall bikini champion at last year's Australian INBA event.
“I couldn't believe it, and I was so proud of how far I'd come, both physically and mentally.
“I look so much younger now than I did before and people comment on it anytime they find out my age.
"Most people generally pick me to be ten years younger than I am.”
Now she feels empathy to children who are currently experiencing bullying and hopes her story will inspire them.
Diane added: “It's true that sometimes you need to be destroyed to rebuild stronger. I'll never forget the way I was treated but it has definitely made me a resilient person.”
