With magazines pushing wight loss pills and programs, celebrities endorsing new diet fads, and Photoshopped pictures all over the pages and screens of the mainstream media, it’s hard to have a very positive self-image. The mainstream world seems to only consider people who are “beautiful” to also be thin and virtually flawless. Many “beauty” standards push an unrealistic expectation on both men and women.
Life coach Rachael Spencer took to Instagram to call out “diet culture, fitness, cellulite cream” that is being forced on women and young girls. She decided to post a side-by-side picture of her at 13 with low self-esteem in a bikini, and her today at 26 with a lot of self-love in her bikini.
Unlike many before and after pictures, Spencer’s isn’t involve some extreme weight loss or dangerous surgery to make her closer to the unrealistic ideals of “beauty”. For Spencer the before and after picture is all about an internal transformation.
“Who taught the young girl on the left to hide her tummy before taking pictures in a swimsuit? Who taught her that at only 13 years old, her chubby little body was unworthy of a photographic memory?” she asks in the caption. “Why was a 13 year old worried about cellulite??? Because the media told her it was bad. That SHE was bad and needed to change.”
In the “before” picture, 13 year-old Spencer is hunched over and covering her belly. In the “after” picture, 26 year-old Spencer is sitting tall and confidently, exposing her midsection.
Spencer’s picture attacks the idea behind the “bikini body” and shows that you don’t need to restrict your diet and go to the gym for hours a day to look decent in a bikini. The “bikini body” look is unrealistic and damaging for women to try and achieve. If you want a true bikini body, just put a bikini on your body, just the way it in, and you’re done!
Shiny Candy 