Celebrate yourself in all your glory and respect the people quite happily living their lives as your ‘before’ photo (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Visit any social media platform right now and you are guaranteed to see sad looking plus-sized women, posing sideways in baggy leggings and sweatshirts, juxtoposed by smiling gym bunnies flexing their abs in string bikinis.

Awkward teenage men alongside Adonis like jawlines and rippling muscles in tiny vests. This summer the before and after pictures are plentiful my friends.

I know that I’m not entirely alone when I say that not once has my first thought on seeing a before and after image been ‘Oh this is great, I’m really happy for you, I can’t wait to see more.’ In the past my immediate, raw, very human response would have been jealousy, the kind of all encompansing toxic envy that forces a ‘looking gr8 hun’ comment, hours of comparison, culminating in extreme self loathing.



Does that make me a terrible person? Quite possibly (definitely) but it doesn’t sit well with me that I should feel a failure in my own body just because it represents somebody else’s ‘before.’

Because ultimately, whatever you *think* you’re saying when you post a before and after weight loss picture, what you’re *actually* saying is that you believe the body you have now holds greater value than the body you had previously – a body similar to that which thousands of other people still have.

I recently saw a (now deleted) before and after tweet from a well known, yo-yo dieting celebrity. The comments below were a mix of ‘I wish I could do this,’ ‘such a great role model,’ plus a few very insincere ‘looking gr8 hun’s because I’m not the only terrible person in the world.

The majority of people seeing this tweet will have read it on face value, they’ll be thinking ‘If she can do it, anyone can do it.’ Except they can’t, because they’re not being paid to work out all day, nor do they have a personal chef. Instead, they are taught, via the power of social media to feel failure, worthlessness and shame.

It will never fail to break my cold, cold heart to see wonderful, bright people full of potential putting their lives on hold for something as irrelevant as dress size.

I am VERY aware that I sound cynical here but I’m perpetually in awe of ex-plus size celebrities, whose initial popularity is generally based on portraying the stereotypical ‘fat funny chick’ role, throwing not only themselves but everyone they represented under the bus to sell a weight loss plan/book/DVD/shakes. It’s commercialism at its absolute finest.



Reinforcing the view that X body = good, and Y body = bad buys into everything that the diet industry are selling us. With that in mind, I completely understand why so many people feel that weight loss is something to be celebrated. They feel it because everything around them is screaming that this is the case, day after day we are told that in order to deserve respect you must be slim, white and able-bodied.

It will never fail to break my cold, cold heart to see wonderful, bright people full of potential putting their lives on hold for something as irrelevant as dress size. The existing narrative that you can only be happy when you look a certain way is pure nonsense.

I know because I’m living it. My life is fabulous. I’m fulfilled. I have fun, I do the things I want to, I love and am loved. The size of my body doesn’t come into it.

So why do I care? Why don’t I just avoid these images, curate my social media into a magical wonderland full of plus size women and those who respect us, almost as if we are humans deserving of such a thing..? I care because I want fatphobia to become a think of the past.

I want fat women to be able to exist with self respect, adequate health care and the ability to navigate life without the constant abuse they currently receive.


At no point have I – nor will I be – adverse to people making the decision to lose weight. Just do it for YOU, and if you’re tempted to post a before and after, stop and ask yourself why you feel the need to do it.

Have pride in the person you are now, celebrate yourself in all your glory. Go for it. BUT respect the people quite happily living their lives as your ‘before’ photo.

And if you really can’t bring yourself to do that, respect the person YOU have been at every stage, because these stages are what have led you to the ‘after’ you are so proud of.

Em Smyth is on Twitter @The_Em_Edit and Instagram @The_Em_Edit

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