“‘Is this an advertisement for why women should get tummy tucks?’
‘Why aren’t there any fit women in this photo? Not every postpartum body is fat and loose.’
‘Why has society made it ok to bash women who bounce back yet glorify women who can’t lose weight?’
‘How about dieting?’
‘Posts like this bother me. Not losing the weight is a choice.’
‘I’m a mother of 4 but I’m also a smokin’ hot wife because that’s my duty. No way I’d be happy or settle to look like this.’
‘Photos like this tear women apart.’
‘So, you’re saying that skinny women don’t have real bodies?’
Just a small sample of the comments we’ve received over the past few days since we first posted this photo.
It’s a shame that the point of our post has been completely missed by some of the people that have taken time out of their day to comment. (The point being: the four of us have been friends online for a long time and finally met IRL and took a last minute photo together… of our different postpartum body types… to show that all body types are beautiful.)
If you look at this photo and your first thought is ‘why are there no skinny women,’ you have bigger issues to deal with, my friend. You can look literally anywhere: film, TV, Instagram, magazines, video games and see skinny women. Other body types are absolutely underrepresented in media and it causes women with those body types to feel less than… to feel like they’re not good enough.
I want to encourage anyone who felt the need to leave any of the above comments to dig deeper, self-reflect, gain some perspective, learn. Your comment says WAY more about you than it does about us.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Bethanie Garcia of The Garcia Diaries. The article originally appeared here. Submit your story here, and be sure to subscribe to our best love stories here.
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