We've all seen a million weight loss success stories on the internet. And even though it can be cool to see people lose weight and get healthy, society's obsession with thinness can make us forget that sometimes it's healthier to be heavier.
U.K.-based blogger Megan Jayne Crabbe proved this with "reverse" before-and-after photos that show her physical transformation after she recovered from an eating disorder. Can you spot the major difference between the two photos?
Yep—she looks a LOT happier in the one on the right. (Also: LOVE THE HAIR)
In the caption, the 23-year-old addressed some misguided (and straight-up rude) comments she received after posting earlier before/after pics of her recovery.
She wrote:
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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. 💜💙💚🌈🌞
P.s. these are all comments I received on my last before/after picture, luckily for me, they just make me want to keep going even more 👊
Crabbe's post went viral, and is wracking up thousands of supportive comments. Like these:
MORE OF THIS PLEASE, INTERNET.
Kudos to Crabbe on sharing her important story and for starting a positive, supportive discussion about body image on the internet.