Lingerie Model Reveals The Truth About ‘Perfect’ Pics

Model talks about the importance of loving yourself through posed and unposed photos

How many of us regularly look at magazines, see the flawless images of women that grace its pages and think, “I will never look like that.” It’s impossible, especially at a young age, to realize they don’t really look like that either.

Self-acceptance takes years for most women. So much of our worth is tied up in how we look. But one 23-year-old decided she’d had enough of the constant comparisons and self-loathing and is doing something about it.

Megan Jayne Crabbe, who blogs at Bodyposipanda is doing her part to show the world how staged and unrealistic the lingerie photos are that we see in magazines and on billboards. The body positive social media star shared photos of herself on her popular Instagram page in lingerie–one with professional makeup, lighting, and positioning and the other with a more natural pose sans makeup.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR6dvNzBqdm/?taken-by=bodyposipanda

“The photo on the left is staged as hell,” Crabbe writes on Instagram. “I was told where to put my legs, how to angle my arm, which way to tilt my hips and even how to hold my fingers.” She says there was so much prep work going into the staged photos that it’s not achievable or realistic to compare ourselves to those airbrushed images we see. “For me, body confidence means embracing your body right now, as it is (not 10 pounds from now!), and also recognizing that you’re so much more than just a body,” Crabbe tells Scary Mommy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSEy4wiBc8s/?taken-by=bodyposipanda

Crabbe, who has suffered from anorexia in the past, is on a mission to help others who feel unhappy, unworthy or “not good enough” when comparing ourselves to the photoshopped images we see. “THESE ARE THE TYPE OF IMAGES WE COMPARE OURSELVES TO EVERYDAY! A posed, polished, perfectly lit snapshot of the highlight reel,” Crabbe says.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRWddyHBncQ/?taken-by=bodyposipanda

”We start to believe that our completely normal bodies are wrong and that things like cellulite, belly rolls, skin blemishes and aging are somehow ugly. We need to see these parts of ourselves being embraced and celebrated for us to learn that there’s truly nothing wrong with our bodies and everything wrong with how we’ve been taught to see them,” Crabbe says.

Crabbe and other body positive women out there are changing the narrative and asking others to do the same. “I’m just your average 23-year-old, taking a stand against a world that profits from teaching us to hate ourselves,” Crabbe says.