Unfiltered

Katie Sturino ’03 has a leg up.

Whether she’s in parking lots, airports, stores, or even in the middle of Times Square, she will confidently prop up her leg and apply her award-winning anti-chafe stick, Thigh Rescue. This bold ritual isn’t merely a marketing tactic for her body-positive beauty brand, Megababe; it reflects Sturino’s approach to life.

As an influencer, entrepreneur, and body-acceptance advocate, Sturino has leveraged her social media platform to challenge body-shaming, promote confidence, and build a supportive community. With her personal brand firmly rooted in embracing people of every size, she launched her company to foster shame-free attitudes toward bodies.

For Sturino, authenticity is more than a motto — it’s her guiding principle: “I don’t know how to do anything different than show up as me,” she says.

Sturino Meets World

Sturino’s first foray into social-media success came in 2014, with a viral Instagram post about her rescue dog Toast, an adorable Cavalier King Charles spaniel whose tongue always hung out of her mouth. At the time, Instagram, while still primarily a photo-sharing app, was on the cusp of its influencer revolution.

After studying rhetoric at UW–Madison, Sturino moved to New York to dive into fashion and PR, including founding her own agency, Tinder PR (no, not that Tinder). That experience led her to turn what could’ve been a flash-in-the-pan moment into a career for Toast that included book deals, modeling gigs, and branded @toastmeetsworld merchandise. Though Toast died in 2017, her social media presence lives on through siblings Muppet, Cheese, and Crumb on their account @dogmeetsworld.

Toast’s success showed Sturino the power of social media and led her to begin using it for herself. She launched her personal Instagram page, @katiesturino, and plus-size fashion blog, The 12ish Style, in 2015. Initially focused on shopping advice for women size 12 and above, Sturino’s blog gained recognition for her candid posts about overcoming her lifelong struggles with body image and offering tips for how other women can do the same.

“I find that, anytime I’m going through something, whether it’s an anxiety attack or not being able to find something in a store, I share it, and inevitably, there are people out there who feel better because I did,” she says.

She also introduced content series like “Can I Shop in Store?” #MakeMySize, and #SuperSizetheLook, where she recommends places to shop, tries on clothes from brands lacking size inclusivity, and encourages women to wear what they like at any size by re-creating celebrities’ outfits on a plus-size body.

Sturino’s journey on social media has had its challenges. “It was a difficult transition because I had never had my face out there before,” she says. “But I felt that I had an important message that needed to get out there, so I pushed through my discomfort and awkwardness, and after about a year, I landed on my feet with it.”

Indeed, she did. @katiesturino now has more than 800,000 followers on Instagram.

To the Thigh Rescue

Every spring, Sturino would sit down with her growing community to ask a very serious question: how are we handling thigh chafe? This annual converastion about “chafe season,” as she dubbed it, was just one example of Sturino’s willingness to speak candidly about issues often overlooked by mainstream beauty brands.

“I talk to my people all the time about all the taboo things people don’t talk about, like thigh chafe and boob sweat,” she shares. Through these conversations, Sturino identified a gap in the market for products that addressed these common issues without embarrassing names or toxic ingredients.

“I just couldn’t wait anymore for the beauty industry to catch up,” she says. In 2017, drawing from her personal experiences and the feedback of her loyal following, Sturino, alongside her sister Jenny Sturino ’00 and friend Kate McPherson ’03, took a leap and self-funded Megababe. Their mission: to create “nontoxic, solution-oriented products to enhance comfort and confidence in people’s bodies.”

Megababe’s journey began with a focus on tackling the dreaded thigh chafe. Despite initial skepticism from manufacturers unfamiliar with the concept, Sturino persisted.

“I knew from talking to my community that this isn’t just a problem for me,” she explains. “So many people have it because we talked about it all the time.” Undeterred, the trio forged ahead by any means necessary, even running operations from the Sturino family’s garage in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, for the first two years.

In 2017, Megababe launched its first two products — Thigh Rescue and Bust Dust, a talc-free powder for perspiration. Both sold out within weeks, and Thigh Rescue continues to be the brand’s bestselling product, with more than one million units sold.

For Sturino, trusting her instincts and those of her followers proved to be the right decision. “I can’t tell you how many people did not think this was a good idea,” she says. “But there was also just so much positivity that came with the launch of this brand.”

In the seven years since, Megababe has shown no signs of slowing down. The company has grown its product offerings from the original two to more than 30, including Megaman, a line for men. It has secured placement in major retailers like Target, Ulta, and Walmart; expanded internationally into Boots, the UK’s largest pharmacy chain; and this year produced its first ad campaign, Megababe vs. The Chafe, starring plus-size model Hunter McGrady. These achievements not only mark business milestones but also reflect success in Sturino’s larger goal to redefine beauty norms and empower people to embrace their true selves.

“My gut was correct,” says Sturino. “It felt really good then, and it feels really good every day, still.”

Body Talk

In May 2024, Sturino found herself in a dreamlike position — seated next to Oprah Winfrey.

Weeks earlier, Sturino made an Instagram post that included criticism of WeightWatchers for decades of harmful weight loss rhetoric and contributing to a culture that “shamed people for simply existing in larger bodies.”

Her post sparked a flood of responses from women sharing similar experiences with dieting and weight-loss culture. It also captured the attention of Sima Sistani, CEO of WeightWatchers, who reached out with a personal apology and an invitation to appear on Oprah’s special, Making the Shift: A New Way to Think about Weight.

“I didn’t know I needed to hear that apology,” Sturino shared in a follow-up post. “I didn’t know it would mean so much. And based on the hundreds of DMs I got, neither did you.”

On the special, Sturino championed her message of body acceptance, encouraging compassion and rejecting the notion that people won’t be happy until they change their weight. Her commitment to challenging societal norms and fostering self-love is evident through her Instagram page, her podcast Boob Sweat, and her 2021 illustrated workbook, Body Talk: How to Embrace Your Body and Start Living Your Best Life. By addressing issues like size inclusivity, negative self-perception, and medical biases, Sturino resonates with a community of women navigating their own body-image challenges.