One Blogger Reminds Us That Everyone Has Tummy Rolls – and That’s OK
Bodyposipanda shows off her body in all its glory. (Photo: Facebook)
A Facebook post from body positive blogger Bodyposipanda just went viral, and (thankfully) this time, it’s for reasons that will warm your heart, instead of make you want to repeatedly slam your head into your desk and quit the Internet forever.
Bodyposipanda shared a side-by-side image of herself. In the lefthand photo, she’s posed to accentuate her curves. On the right, we see her sitting down, her natural tummy rolls on full display. “We see so many painstakingly posed professional model bodies that we start to see our own as flawed. Abnormal. Ugly. But there really is no wrong way to have a body, despite what we’ve all been taught,” she wrote. “Whenever I post anything celebrating my belly rolls there’s an army of body shamers ready to tell me that I’m hideous, unhealthy, unworthy. But guess what? MOST WOMEN HAVE BELLY ROLLS WHEN THEY SIT DOWN. As well as cellulite on their thighs, bags under their eyes, scars and blemishes and a million other ‘imperfections’ we’ve learned to see as problems. Our ideas about bodies are so warped that most people would praise the girl on the left and condemn the girl on the right, without realizing that we’re one and the same. Well, I’ve worked damn hard to love the body in both these pictures, and I won’t let the world paint my unique features as flaws to be fixed.”
Granted, there were a few mean-spirited comments on the post, but the reaction to the images was overwhelmingly positive, with many other women in the comments section sharing their own stories about their journeys in accepting their bodies. “As a mom in her 30s I need to see things like this,” one commenter wrote. “My body will never be celebrity, magazine thin or smooth. It’s real, it’s worked hard, and I know in the end once the ‘baby weight’ is off there’s only so much I can do to to get to a size, a number. It’s about feeling healthy and happy in my own skin.”
“You make me feel so good about myself,” another wrote. “I’m an ED [eating disorder] recoverer too. I have a hard time with body image but Im slowly getting there. Kudos to you for keeping it real.”
“I have a belly like this woman above and that’s because I have given birth to a lovely boy and I have my tiger stripes,” another women wrote, “and I am so proud to be able to have welcomed a lovely baby into this world. If you are happy with your six packs or your curves why not bloody show it off. Why can’t we go back to the world where we didn’t care what we wore, we didn’t care what we looked like, we just partied hard and enjoyed ourselves.”
An older woman shared her experience, mentioning that even though she tries to keep fit, she’s been shamed for her body and her clothing choices because of her age. “I get scathing looks and comments about my body all the time,” she wrote. “Just because I am in my sixties does not mean I have to look a certain way. I don’t wear 'old lady’ clothes (someone else’s description, not mine) and I work out almost every day.”
She added: “I have been told, to my face, that women my age should not have muscles, that we should 'age gracefully’ whatever that means and that I should look more like the Grandma that I am. My question is why? Where is this freaking rule book that says we all should look a certain way? If anyone can find it…please burn it. This is how I look at 61…is it that bad to be fit at my age?”
We reached out to Megan Jayne Crabbe, the woman behind Bodyposipanda, to learn what made her post this image to begin with. “I do a lot of posts like that one on my Instagram account @bodyposipanda where I promote body positivity and eating disorder recovery,” she tells Yahoo Style via direct message. “The belly roll appreciation photos are my favorite kind — they show that the parts of ourselves we’ve been taught to see as 'flaws’ are completely natural, and even beautiful. So much of how we feel about ourselves is based on what we see, specifically the bodies in the media we compare ourselves to. I think seeing a more diverse range of bodies being embraced is a great antidote to that toxic comparison. Belly rolls, cellulite, lumps, bumps and all those other 'imperfections’ are things that make us all so beautifully diverse, nobody deserves to hate their body because of them.”
The response Crabbe has gotten for her latest post isn’t uncommon. The blogger says that women often share their stories, and indeed it is an important aspect of her site. “A lot of women share their body image struggles on @bodyposipanda after reading posts that make them realize they’re not alone,” she explains. “We’re all so connected by our feelings of not being good enough, especially in our bodies. Women have been targeted for over a century now by industries that make billions by making us see our bodies as problems, and it’s clear that we’ve all had enough.”
“We all deserve better,” she adds, “and body positivity gives us a way to fight back against the unrealistic ideals we’re sold everyday.”
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