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Brooke Birmingham will be featured in Shape Magazine after all.

Over the past few months, the 28-year old Illinois resident has risen to online fame through her blog (Brooke: Not on a Diet), which chronicles her 170-pound weight loss.

The story caught the attention of Shape editors, who asked to publish a photo of Brooke’s incredible feat… only to back out when she provided them with the following image:

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Told it was “policy” for the publication to only run images of subjects with their shirts on, Birmingham was applauded for basically calling out this BS excuse to NOT post a picture of her stomach rolls.

“If I couldn’t have the picture of me in my bikini to go along with my story, then it wasn’t MY story,” she wrote a few weeks ago. “The story I wanted to tell and shout out to the world, not their ideal story. So, if I couldn’t tell it my way, then they weren’t going to be able to tell it at all.”

 

Now, however, we’re proud to say Brooke has won her battle.

Along with other “real” women, she’ll be featured in an upcoming Shape spread.

“We are excited to make this into an impactful discussion about weight loss and the realities,” Editor-At-Large Bahar Takhtehchian. “We want to turn this into something positive.”

Takhtehchian had previously said a freelancer erred in citing an editorial policy that “did not exist” when turning down Brooke’s photograph.

In a blog post summarizing the whirlwind coverage of the Shape controversy, Brooke thanked her fans and addressed her critics:

“I want to say thank you so much for all of your kind words through all of this!

“The positive response I have received has been overwhelming and I can’t even keep up with all the comments, emails, and messages.”

“Thankfully the positive has far outweighed the negative, which is great to see. You guys rock and made this small-town girl feel pretty amazing over the last week.

“I’m glad to have been the girl who brought this conversation to the mainstream media and to have so much support throughout it all!

“As for the negative people, sorry that you feel the need to bash people who are doing great things for this world. Nobody has time for that.”

Kudos to her for standing her ground refusing to be pushed out or Photoshopped out, like we’ve seen so many times in recent years …