Thin Women Are Post-Baby Body-Shamed All The Time, And That’s Not Cool Either
If you don’t bounce back from having a baby right away, you’re probably going to be body-shamed, but if you do bounce back immediately, watch out: you are still going to be body-shamed. At least that’s what happened to model Erin McNaught recently after she posted a selfie of her rockin’ 4-months-postpartum bod.
According to The Inquisitr, McNaught was “very proud of the work she put in” to get her post-baby body looking great and she uploaded the pic to show her progress, but because the internet is a terrible hate machine, the picture was met with insane criticism.
“Instead of seeing a hot mama who clearly worked hard for her figure (which is, of course, important to her career), a bunch of people decided to concern troll McNaught. The 32-year-old Australian model was shamed left and right for daring to upload the ”triggering” image. Experts gave opinions that nobody asked for about this woman’s body, declaring her body an unrealistic example for new mothers to follow.”
Of course a super model is an unrealistic example for new mothers. Her body was unrealistic for most women before she got pregnant. Why would we expect anything different post-baby? And why should she be shamed for having better-than-average genes?
Angry commenters accused this woman of everything from having screwed up priorities to being anorexic to being a bad mom to body-shaming other people just by the mere act of posting a photo of her own body. I don’t get the hate. McNaught didn’t post this photo with “No Excuses” emblazoned across her abs or tell other women they were lazy failures for not looking like a supermodel. She did what a lot of women do after they have a baby: she talked about the progress she is making in feeling at home again in her own body. Her body just happens to naturally be a lot hotter than most of ours.
Mom bodies are a hot topic in pop culture, but why we continue to participate in such a damaging, unhealthy conversation is beyond me. Our bodies, like our babies, are completely unique and respond to pregnancy in unpredictable ways. I gained 40 pounds with my first child, had stretch marks, and developed a permanent belly flap that is going no where. With my second, I barely gained 20 pounds and was back in my pre-baby jeans 5 weeks after delivery. How we look after pregnancy is dependent on a lot of factors, including lifestyle, how we looked pre-baby, and good old out-of-our-control genetics. One thing that’s true across the board, though, is that no one should be shamed for how they look or for being proud of their body. If McNaught came out and started throwing shade at other moms for not looking like her I could see the outrage, but as it stands? Calm the fuck down, Internet.
(Image via Instagram)
