Ariel Winter Reveals She Struggled to Find Body Confidence

Looking at Ariel Winter's confident social media presence, you would hardly guess the 19-year-old once struggled to be comfortable with the way she looked.

The Modern Family star appeared on The View Tuesday as a guest and offered up some inspiring words for others while revealing that she struggled for years to find acceptance before developing that confidence we know her to have today.

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"Well, I struggled for many years with my own confidence with myself," Entertainment Tonight reports the star as saying when asked why she wants to empower women. "It was a really long journey to find that confidence, and I think it's really important because there are tons of young girls, young boys, people that are older than me, that don't really have a lot of people to look up to that are outspoken about things like that."

"And I thought, you know, I went through so much at a young age, I was criticized for everything -- the way I looked, the way I dressed, what I said," she continued. "And I thought for a while that if I changed the way I was that people would accept me. I tried, and they still didn't."

She added that she wants to encourage people to care less about what others think and more about what makes them happy.

"So that's what I try and tell people is, 'Do what makes you happy,' and that is ultimately going to be the best thing for you," Winter explained. "I just feel like regardless of the negative comments I'll get for speaking out, it matters so much more to me the positive feedback that I get, that I'll take those negative comments and it doesn't matter. I'm just happy to help."

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