Christen Press latest USWNT player to be in ESPN's Body Issue

Christen Press will be one of the athletes in ESPN's 2016 Body Issue and will be getting her own cover.

The Body Issue is a yearly special issue from ESPN that features athletes posing nude, but with a mission statement to emphasize their athleticism as opposed to sexualizing them. It features both male and female athletes and this year will showcase 10 men and nine women, including their first trans athlete, Chris Mosier.

There's usually a soccer player involved each year; last year Ali Krieger was in the issue, and the year before that Megan Rapinoe and Omar Gonzalez. Tim Howard, Sydney Leroux, Carlos Bocanegra, Abby Wambach, and Hope Solo have all done Body Issues as well.

This year Press joins them, perhaps an indicator of her rising star power not just as a soccer player but as an athlete in general.

Her interview with ESPN goes into issues of body insecurity and learning to find fulfillment in soccer again after it became joyless for her in college.

The Body Issue has its detractors, but its equal focus on male and female athletes, its inclusion of many different body types, and its emphasis on bodies in action makes a decent argument for it just being a nice body-positive special issue.