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This woman's powerful 'before and after' photos crush myths about body positivity

"Body positivity is about saying that you are more than a body and your self-worth is not reliant on your beauty."

@scarrednotscared/Instagram

Michelle Elman, a body positivity coach, helps people who are struggling to find confidence in their own skin. After persevering through numerous medical conditions and surgeries in her own life, Elman realized a few years ago that body positivity wasn't just about size or weight.

Things like scars, birthmarks, and anything else that makes us feel different of self-conscious have to be a part of the conversation, and she tries to make the movement accessible to everyone. Sharing her own journey has been one of her most effective teaching tools.

In May, she shared a post on Instagram of herself trying on a dress she bought five years ago in order to prove a powerful point.

In the first photo, from 2012 — when she was a size 12, she says — she's wearing a size 14 dress. In the new photo, she's wearing the same dress, though she says she normally wears a size 20.

The dress still fit.

"NUMBERS DON'T MEAN ANYTHING," she wrote in the post. "So are you really going to let a change [in] dress size dictate your day? Are you really going to let an increase in a number affect your mood?"

"A higher dress size doesn't mean: — you are less beautiful — you are less worthy — you are less lovable — you are a worse human — you are a bad person — you are a different person AND it doesn't even mean you have a bigger body."

The viral photo inspired thousands of people. While a huge majority of the comments were positive, there was still something bugging Elman about the response.

Not everyone was getting the right message.

"Since the creation of this account, I have always been told I'm beautiful 'for my size' and I never wanted to talk about it because I thought I was being pedantic but eventually decided to speak my mind about it," she says in an email.

She decided to create a follow-up post to set a few things straight about what body positivity really means.

In the second post, she took a different approach to the "before and after" shots we see so often on Instagram. People loved it.

In the caption, Elman addresses a couple of things well-meaning people got wrong about the message she was trying to spread. Some commenters said she looked "skinnier" in the 2017 photo which, though meant as a compliment, just reinforces that being skinny is somehow better.

Others said she wasn't fat enough, to which Elman could only scoff.

"If people tell you they are a certain size, believe them," she wrote.

"People think that body positivity is about trying to convince people that bigger bodies are attractive, either physically or sexually," she says.

But that's totally missing the point of what her work is all about.

"If you are still relating your love for your body to society's perception of beauty," she says, "then you are still reliant on someone else's opinion. Body positivity is about saying that you are more than a body and your self-worth is not reliant on your beauty."

Her second post is currently sitting at over 26,500 likes on Instagram — a clear sign that this is a message many of us desperately needed to hear.


This article originally appeared seven years ago.



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Family

The unexpected reason why this mom is totally fine with her 14-year-old teen stealing vodka

"This generation really is different from us."

via Antoni Shkraba/Pexels and Vincent/Flickr

A mother is shicked that her vodka keeps disappearing.

A mother of 3 named Stacey (@StaceyCKs1 on X) realized that a bottle of Grey Goose vodka she had was slowly being emptied, but she hadn’t taken a sip. So she thought it must be one of her children, ages 14, 17 and 23, taking some sneaky sips of her stash.

The funny thing is that anyone who has been a teenager knows that after you take some of the vodka from your parents’ bottle, you replace the amount with water so no one notices you drank some. Until, of course, your parents take a sip and immediately realize it’s been watered down. But whoever was pouring shots from Stacy’s bottle didn’t even worry about getting caught.

Stacey approached her 3 kids to find out which one had been drinking her vodka. The response she got was unexpected, to say the least. It was her 14-year-old daughter, but she wasn’t using the vodka to get drunk.

“Noticed that my vodka supply was dwindling,” she wrote on Twitter. “Confronted 23 and 17, who pointed the finger at 14, who guiltily confessed to making penne allá vodka ‘several times’ over the last month. Didn’t believe her, watched her execute it flawlessly. I guess it’s a TikTok thing?”

The teenager didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was cooking with the vodka. She didn’t “guilty confess”; she “answered the question,” Stackey remarked in the tweet thread. “She wasn’t trying to hide what she was doing. These kids are different than we were.”



To verify that the teen wasn’t lying, Stacey asked her to make some penne allá vodka and the teen “crushed it.” Some people in the comments wondered why she didn’t notice her daughter making elaborate meals in the kitchen. Stacey said the cooking happened while she was working or on the phone and that she doesn’t like pasta. Her daughter also made the meals in the morning to take to school for lunch.

Stacey shared a screenshot of her daughter’s delicious dish.



The mother also shared the recipe for the curious:

A shallot and some garlic sweated in olive oil and a tablespoon of butter, a can of tomato paste, some Calibri chilies, maybe 10 ounces of sand Marzano tomatoes, 2 cups of heavy cream, a cup of fresh parm, 2 tablespoons of vodka.

One person on Twitter had a problem with the teenager using supplies in the house without asking permission. They also had an issue with kids learning how to cook on TikTok. But Stacey wasn’t dealing with any parenting criticism.



It’s believed that Gen Z's recent fascination with penne allá vodka started when Gigi Hadid shared her spicy version of the recipe on Instagram in 2020. Since then, the dish has been called a TikTok “obsession.”

The dish's ubiquity was lampooned on “Saturday Night Live” earlier this year in a sketch, where a “big a**” aluminum platter can be found at just about any significant gathering, whether it's a wedding, bridal shower, or retirement party.

"A big a** aluminum tray of penne alla vodka [is] loved by none, but tolerated by all," Andrew Dismukes says in the sketch accompanied by his bride, Chloe Fineman, who adds, "Because it's not that good, but it's not that bad either."

"It may not stay hot, but it never gets all the way cold,” Keenaan Thompson says, playing a man at his retirement party.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

The story of Stacey and her pasta-loving daughter is a perfect example of a recent significant change in American culture: Young people drink much less than they used to. Stacey, who appears to be an older Millenial or younger Gen X, comes from an era when the majority of teens drank alcohol. However, things have changed.

A report in The Conversation has found that the proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds who drank alcohol “in the last week” fell from 67% in 2002 to 37% in 2021. The change is part of a generational trend where younger people are more risk-averse than older generations. Gen Zers are also less likely to smoke and have sex than previous generations.

If you’re a parent of a teenager in 2204 and your vodka starts going missing, maybe it’s time to check and see if your stash of penne is on the decline as well because your kid is probably more likely to be a secret chef than a drinker.

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teens
Family

Toddler carries a dead cicada everywhere she goes—even to the dentist—and it's so sweet

This is the stuff you simply can't prepare for as a parent.

Image credit: Izzy Wherry/Instagram

It's not every day you see an emotional support cicada.

There are few things in this world more delightful than a child's imagination. Once in a while, we get a clear glimpse into that world when a kid does something that makes us scratch our heads and smile ear to ear in equal measure.

For instance, when a toddler finds a dead cicada and adopts it as a beloved companion.

Mom Izzy Wherry has been sharing her 2-year-old daughter's adventures and escapades with a cicada corpse that are hilariously endearing. The little one found a dead cicada in the family's yard, and for an entire month has been bringing him along with her everywhere she goes. He gets baths, he gets swung on the swing, he has his own remote office outside where he types on his little computer keyboard, and more.

He goes to the park, he's gone on a camping trip, and he even went to the dentist, where he lay next to Wherry's daughter on the dentist's chair as if he were an actual emotional support pet.

People are celebrating the girl's creative and compassionate care for her formerly-living friend as well as the cicada getting to live his best afterlife.

"He's lived a full life since he died 😂"

"Would you still love me if I was a dead cicada?"

"It's going to be the ring bearer on her wedding day."

"If he only knew how loved he is. 😂"

Many people expressed how beautiful it is to see a child just being a quintessential child. Some parents would never let their child carry a bug carcass around like this, but it's clear that this lone, dead cicada means something to this kiddo. Cicadas are loud (when they're alive), large and tough (the fact that he hasn't fallen apart yet is a testament to that), but it's notable that she's so careful and gentle in the way she handles him. Wherry confirmed that her daughter knows that the cicada is actually dead, but she still uses her imagination to bring him to life, which is both hilarious and sweet.

"I absolutely love her imagination and creativity!!!🩷😍😇"

"This so sweet and so innocent. Almost a shame they have to grow up."

"This is sooooo precious i love when parents let their kids be unapologetically kids ❤️"

"My daughter littered our home with rollie pollies and named them all MR. She collected rocks as well in all of her pockets. Wash day was a bit crazy 😂"

"My daughter found a dead ladybug and she made her a jacuzzi from a walnut shell...with saliva..."

"iPad kid ❌ playing with corpses ✅ maybe there is hope for the new generation."

in a world where parents are constantly battling television and tablets and other screen-based technologies, it's lovely to see a child engaging natural play inspired by the outdoors. Carrying around a dead cicada may not have been what her parents had in mind when they took their kiddo outside, but that's the beauty of children engaging with the natural world—you just never know what they're going to discover, create, collect or become attached to. Seeing a child's imagination in action is a fleeting privilege, and to capture and share it with others is a wonderful gift. Thanks to this family and the dead cicada for letting us into a little one's world for a while.

You can follow Izzy Wherry and her daughter's cicada adventures on Instagram.

kids
Pop Culture

Influencer mom Ashley LeMieux shares 'before and after' pics to debunk social media beauty myths

"Just a small reminder that it’s impossible to see it all on social media."

@ashleyklemieux/Instagram

"We get glimpses into other people’s stories, not the entirety."

Listen, we are all aware that social media is but a carefully curated highlight reel of everyone’s best angles and biggest wins. But even knowing this, it can be almost impossible not to compare ourselves to what we see day in, day out on Instagram.

Of course, many folks actively try to combat this societal norm by sharing their less-than-perfect selves. And honestly, they’re often a breath of fresh air.

Recently, mom and wellness coach Ashley LeMieux decided to post her own version of this. For each totally Insta-worthy photo she took while on vacation, she also posted the “unedited, zero filtered, real life moments” that happened seconds later.

Alongside images of a flattering bikini pose, a sweet daddy-daughter interaction, and a glamorous beachside date night were also images showing a little cellulite, a toddler meltdown, and the “unseen anxiety” felt during that date.

In her caption, LeMieux wrote:

“Just a small reminder that it’s impossible to see it all on social media. We get glimpses into other people’s stories, not the entirety…It’s easy to compare our whole life to small parts of someone else’s, and think that we must have something wrong with us. Comparison impacts our mental health so deeply, and it’s unfair to ourselves, and to each other, to think that everyone else has what we wish we had for ourselves.”

In an interview with Good Morning America, LeMieux shared that part of her inspiration behind the post came from the women she works with everyday that “don’t feel good enough,” thank in part to comparing themselves to what’s seen on social media.

"I think that when we can see other people having this real life that is similar to ours, we're like, 'OK, maybe there's not something wrong with me, or maybe it's not that my life is so different from theirs,'" she said. "We can never fully see the bigger picture, which is why I think that conversations like this are so meaningful and important, so that we can have this quick reminder of, we're all human, we all have our stuff, we just don't see the entirety of it happening all the time.”

So, so, so many people commented to say how much they really needed to hear and see this. One person even admitted that “sometimes I don’t post because I feel like a fraud because my life isn’t as perfect as I would post.”

Others shared their own love for the unfiltered side of social media.

“I so appreciate this!! I love the unfiltered side, and am always excited to see the nitty gritty you post!! Real life is beautiful, as are you mama ❤️,” one person wrote.

Another added, “The content everyone on Instagram (especially teenagers) need to see and absorb. 👏”

We might know that no one’s life is truly perfect, but clearly a little reminder every now and then can work wonders. Don’t let the false narrative of social media rob you of real joy.

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