At 17, Graham signed with Wilhelmina Models and moved to New York City on her own. She quickly discovered the industry’s uglier aspects—for one thing, that even within the niche of plus-size modeling, body diversity has its limits. After one agent waved a wad of cash in her face and said, “You can make a lot more of this if you lose more pounds,” her body image took a dive. Graham began trying every diet under the sun, from cabbage soup to 10-day juice fasts.
But nothing stuck. “All of a sudden, Mom wasn’t cooking for me; Mom wasn’t there being like, ‘Lets go work out!’ ” Her confidence plummeted, and so did the control she felt over her body. “I went from a size 12 to a size 18,” she says, trying to keep up with the constant partying and networking that seemed effortless to the other models and agents around her. “It was a dark place.” At the time, Graham couldn’t see herself as beautiful at a size 18, but more than that, “It was the way that I was treating my body. I didn’t understand the health aspect of it.” The former high school basketball and volleyball player stopped exercising, losing her tone and definition. Within a year of moving to New York, “I looked at myself in the mirror and said, ‘I hate you. You’re so gross,’ ” Graham recalls. “I’m looking at my cellulite and my back fat and thinking, I have to go shoot lingerie tomorrow and smile, and I am heinous. How can I get through this?”