Teen on a Mission to Change the Way People Define Beauty

It all started with a cartwheel.

Madeline Stuart, 18, was having trouble with the move in her hip-hop dance class because of extra weight she’d put on.

RELATED: Model With Down Syndrome on Catwalk at New York Fashion Week

So about a year and a half ago, the Brisbane teen cut out junk food and began swimming five times a week, all while continuing her other activities including cheerleading, basketball, and cricket with the Special Olympics.

That’s right - the athlete who has since shed an impressive 20 kilograms - has a disability: Down syndrome. But instead of slowing her down, Stuart is motivated to do more than the average teenager.

Since she lost weight, she gained so much confidence that she wants to get into modelling - specifically to show the world that beauty comes in all different shapes.

Maddy, as she’s nicknamed, writes on her 100,000-likes-and-counting Facebook page that “modelling will help change societies view of people with Down Syndrome (sic),” and adds, “exposure will help to create acceptance.”

Unconditional acceptance is something the aspiring star, who has so far been snapped for the clothing label Living Dead, has gotten since day one from her mother, Roseanne Stuart.

The proud mum told Daily Mail Australia that she has always made a point of telling her daughter “every day how amazing, funny, smart, beautiful, wonderful she is.”

Posing professionally would just let others in on the secret. “I think it is time people realised that people with Down syndrome can be sexy and beautiful and should be celebrated,” she says, acknowledging that attitudes have thankfully already shifted considerably for the better.

“Things were a lot different 18 years ago,” Roseanne told Buzzfeed. “I remember having her in a [stroller] when she was a baby and small-minded people telling me she should not be out in public….But things are changing every day and people are more accepting of what they don’t understand yet.”

What Maddy ultimately wants, says her mum, is “to change the way people discriminate against disability.”

What does her mum hope will happen? “I want people to stop saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ when I tell them my daughter has Down syndrome because it’s a very naive statement,” Roseanne says. “Maybe Maddy can stop people feeling that way. If the average person could see the beauty Maddy has inside, how loving and caring she is and if that is what people measured beauty on, then most of the models in the world would have Down syndrome.”