Jennifer Lopez refuses to listen to critics who tell her to lose weight, as she is proud of the way she looks.

The 48-year-old actress and singer – who has 10-year-old twins Emme and Max with her former husband Marc Anthony – has revealed that in the early days of her career she was told to “lose a few pounds” in order to get rid of her curvy figure, but refused to take anyone’s advice because she was proud of the way she looked.

She said: “They didn’t bother me at all. But I got a lot of flak for it from people in the industry. They’d say, ‘You should lose a few pounds,’ or ‘You should do this or do that.’ It finally got to the point that I was like, ‘This is who I am. I’m shaped like this.’ Everybody I grew up with looked like that, and they were all beautiful to me. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I still don’t!”

The ‘Shades of Blue’ actress credits her family with helping her stay positive when it comes to her body image. Now, the ‘On The Floor’ hitmaker is working on passing her confident attitude onto her young daughter Emme.

Speaking to InStyle magazine, Jennifer said: “The one thing I really want to teach her is to love and respect herself first and to make sure she commands respect from others. Social media – it’s fun and social, but at the end of the day you’re living in real time, where you have a core group of friends and family. I try to get her to focus on the things that matter: being a good person, friend, and daughter, being happy with herself, and doing the things she loves.”