Lauren Alaina Faces Body Image Issues Head-On in ‘Road Less Traveled’ Music Video

For several years of her life, Lauren Alaina secretly struggled with negative body image and bulimia. Within the past year, she has begun to openly share her story in hopes of helping others facing the same demons.

On top of opening up about her struggles, the Georgia native is channeling her new-found strength through her music. In the just-released music video for her empowering new single, “The Road Less Traveled,” the Georgia native is facing those issues head-on.

“I am so excited about this video,” Alaina gushed to Sounds Like Nashville on the set of the music video. “Basically, we have three girls that are playing younger versions of me and kind of telling my story of self-image problems. It kind of shows how it progressed for me. We have a six-year-old, a 12-year-old, and a teenager, like a 17 or 18-year-old version of me. The little girl isn’t really sad yet, she’s just kind of starting to try to change who she is, change the way she looks, she’s putting on makeup. Then the 12-year-old is pushing her food away, not wanting to eat because she’s wanting to fit into this bathing suit. She’s kind of wearing frumpy clothes. She’s totally me. I wore sweatpants all the time when I was younger because I thought that that would hide my body. Then the 18-year-old is reading things online that people have said about her. She’s backstage at a show.”

Filming the video was a cathartic process for the singer, who, she admits, is still fighting to embrace herself for who she is.

“When I was interacting with the girls in the mirror and picturing them as me, it made me really emotional,” she explained. “I thought, looking at them, at that age, just something clicked that how could I have looked at myself at that age and thought there was anything wrong with me. It’s really been an emotional day for me because it’s like the most emotional part of my life and the hardest struggle I’ve had. To have these girls here, at those ages, and thinking about the things I said to myself at that age is really sad. I would never, ever say those things to those girls so why did I say them to myself, you know?”

“It’s really been cool for me. I’ve been worried today,” Alaina continued. “It’s hard to be on set because I’m like, ‘Do my arms look big?’ And then I turned around at one point and I’m like, “Do my arms look big?’ Because I like to cover my arms up a lot of the time, and I turned around and the six-year-old me, that’s so funny to say, was sitting there and I started feeling bad because I wrote this song for people like her and I need to be a little bit more confident. So they’re making me step up my game here today.”

While the filming of the clip was therapeutic for the singer herself, she hopes that her message will reach a wide scope of people and encourage them to love themselves for who they are inside and out.

“I think that a lot of people deal with their insecurities and I hope that they can kind of see that every girl, the six-year-old, the 12-year-old, the 18-year-old and me is beautiful and there’s nothing wrong with any of us. We just see things that other people don’t see. We make up things and I wanted to address that in the video. I want it to be emotional, but I want it to be a celebration too because when you look at these little girls you don’t see a single thing wrong with them but I could not get that out of my head.”

Check out Lauren Alaina’s new music video for “Road Less Traveled” above. The track is featured on her self-titled EP, which is available for purchase HERE.