View this post on Instagram[1]
Despite the huge strides to make society more open to diverse representations of women of all shapes [3] and races, body confidence is still a struggle for many. If you're grappling to find any positive feelings about your own form, model and body-positivity champion Iskra Lawrence [4]'s Instagram post marking Body Confidence Day is just what you need to see today.
In the post (which has garnered nearly 300,000 "likes" and thousands of supportive comments), Iskra speaks about how little of real life social media feeds actually reflect [5], especially when it comes to Instagram posts. Using her own post as an example, she wrote, "I ALWAYS want you to remember these are curated even though they are unretouched you can see the diff between the first two pics which are more 'posed' and the last which Isn't."
As a way of promoting your own body confidence [6], Iskra suggests people curate social feeds that inspire an appreciation for diverse representations of beauty and fuel our own self-love, rather than cause self-loathing, saying, "have a look who you're following and see if maybe you can follow more marginalised people who aren't represented in the media and need their voices heard."
Building a more confident existence isn't easy, but it sure is worth the work, because as Iskra says, "We are all here in these bodies which are our homes so let's start celebrating that and valuing and appreciating them for all their magical capabilities and experiences that they allow us to have in this world."