This Woman Goes Viral Online For Reminding People What Real Bodies Look Like By Sharing These 30 Side-By-Side Pictures
Beauty standards in different places in the world vary because there is no exact formula of what is beautiful so it depends on the way people view the world. But whatever the standard is, it will include only a part of people and the rest of them will feel like they are worth less because they don’t possess the features that many admire.
When it comes to body image, in Western cultures, the preferred body is a lean one. That is what people online mostly want to show and want to see. Other body types are rarely represented, thus making people who look different than the Instagram models feel like there’s something wrong with them.
What is worse, in many cases, those Instagram models don’t even look like that in real life. Angles, poses, lighting and a little bit of editing help them to achieve the image they would like to be. But there are people like Sara Puhto who understand how damaging seeing such photos is for others, so she shows the reality behind them and it’s surprising how we beat ourselves up for not being the standard when it is impossible to achieve it as it’s not real.
Sara Puhto is a content creator from Finland who has been posting on her Instagram since 2015. She started off as a fitness account so her content was something similar to what you would imagine to be a standard Instagram model.
Bored Panda reached out to Sara to find out what changed and she told us a little bit about how it all started: “I used to be a fitness content creator in 2015/2016, so I was posting photos of my ‘fitness progress’ and those curated photos that I talk about on my page now, so it was scary for me at first when I had that realization that I was adding to the falsities on Instagram.”
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Since then, Sara has become quite a big Instagrammer with 380k followers and is now more known for her ‘Instagram Vs Reality’ series in which she shows how different the same body can look if you tweak it a little bit there and here.
Sara admitted that when she decided to stop posting photos that don’t match reality, she was scared and even though she was a fitness blogger, she felt insecure about her body, as she was comparing it to others. While talking to Insider, the Instagrammer explained what made her change up her content: “I realized that the photos that I was posting may have been making other people feel like this.”
But to Sara’s relief, the response she received was really positive and it continues to be such. “It was received very well by others and I got a lot of positive reactions and support towards it.
I feel that the reaction continues to be the same, even though I’ve been doing this for years, I continue to receive positive feedback about it, mostly.”
So many people feel insecure and are afraid to show how their bodies really look and the insecurity stems from the fear of being judged and called not pretty. But it seems that those fears don’t have reason as Sara is proof that people appreciate others being realistic.
Pia kjærgaard 3 years agoBut…. Men have the picture nr 1 inside there heads!!! I have comments again & again from guys,when they saw me relax My tummy,that I was “Fat”!!!!! I know a lot of women have experienced that to. Please,are we never to be just US!!!♥️
The content creator goes a little bit more into detail and gives her guess why her comments are mostly filled with love and admiration instead of hate. “I think this is because we need to see more unposed and unedited photos on Instagram and other social media platforms, especially with younger generations joining social media platforms earlier and earlier, I think its important to expose them to unedited and not posed photos as opposed to them only seeing curated photos 24/7.”
Thales Rocha 3 years agoProbably a scoliosis surgery, I have one of these, myself. Amazing result. She looks great.
Pia kjærgaard 3 years agoI dont No Why we all need to be so “ Perfect “!!!! Look the “Standard” before we are OK! Suicide- rate is Giant because people are Fat-shaming,Being Bullied for No reasons!! In the most cruel ways!! Respect each other & the differences,Please!!
As mentioned, Sara started posting fitness content in 2015 and a year later, she began her mission to show the reality of an Instagrammer. She hasn’t stopped since so we were curious to find out what motivates her to continue.
She said “I think the thing that motivates me to continue doing it is knowing that it helps people, the messages, comments, emails and DMs I get motivate me more than I can explain. Because I know how it feels to be in such a dark place regarding your body image, or just disliking the body you’re in, or the insecurities getting too much. So if I can be of help to even a few people, it means the world to me.”
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