A blogger who received cruel messages about her body has well and truly put the haters in their place with an empowering message about body image.
Last month Megan Jayne Crabbe posted a side-by-side image showing herself two-and-a-half years ago - when she was living by a “restrictive diet plan and extreme exercise regime” - compared to today.
The 24-year-old posted the image to show that she while she’s gained weight, she’s also gained a sense of freedom and self-love.
But in response, she received multiple hateful messages, with some people suggesting she had “ruined” her body.
Never one to let negativity get her down, Crabbe recently posted a second side-by-side image with a message for all those who criticised her.
Crabbe, who runs the blog Bodyposipanda, posted the new image along with kickass responses to some of the messages she previously received.
She captioned the new image:
1. “Wait so you just decided to ruin your body?”
- “Nah, I just stopped torturing myself every day for not fitting an image I was never supposed to be.”
2. “But you look so much healthier to me before.”
- “That’s funny, you looked so much more intelligent to me before you equated health with weight and forgot that mental health is health too.”
3. “You could have stayed the same and loved your body, you didn’t need to get fat.”
- “I could have stayed the same and spiralled back into the eating disorder that almost killed me when I was 15. I could have kept starving myself and obsessively working out for hours everyday but it never would have lead me to self love.“No matter how much weight I lost there was always still something to hate. And sure, people don’t need to gain weight to find their self love, this is just what my body needed to do to match up to my mental freedom. This is my happy body.”
4. “But surely you can’t be happy looking like that now, I could never be happy in that body.”
- “I didn’t think I could either, but as it turns out, happiness isn’t a size. And I wasted far too many years believing that it was. Now I’m not going to stop letting people know that they deserve happiness exactly as they are.“They deserve to live now, not 10 pounds from now. They deserve that mental freedom. So to every person reading this: I hope you get your freedom too, however it might look. I’ll be cheering you on every step of the way.”
Crabbe’s latest post has been liked more than 117,000 times, with thousands of people thanking her for spreading body positivity.
“Your account has been a big influence on me and as a result I decided a week ago to stop fat-shaming myself and I am so much happier already,” one user said.
“Keep being awesome. P.s. you’re gorgeous - you seem so healthy and happy and it glows.”
Another added: “You are an absolutely beautiful human being and I am so happy for you that you no longer need people to tell you that in order for you to believe it...This image is now inspiring me to love my own body, since I have gone through a similar transition. Thank you so much for the hope this photo gives me.”
We think she’s one remarkable lady.