Whether people are going crazy for gym classes, turning down every biscuit in the office because they “want to lose Christmas weight”, or doing a full-on juice cleanse, it can seem like the word “diet” and the phrase “New Year’s resolutions” are unavoidable right now. And it can be pretty easy to let that get on top of us.
Enter 23-year-old Megan Crabbe – who blogs here and is known as @bodyposipanda on Instagram – and some of her bad-ass words to live by.
Megan, who lives in Essex, calls herself a body positive feminist and, as someone who’s battled in the past to overcome an eating disorder, is all about helping her social media followers to learn to love themselves.
When writing on Instagram recently about why she refuses to do any New Year diets, she said: “Here’s to another year of belly roll appreciation, cellulite celebration, and unapologetic self love.
“I refuse to make any resolutions to shrink myself. I refuse to see my reflection as a problem that needs fixing. I refuse to spend another year at war with my body.
“If you didn’t conquer body love in 2016, that’s okay. Because I believe in you so damn much, and I hope that this year you realise how powerful you truly are, how perfect your body really is, and how WORTHY you are of self love, exactly as you are.
“Here’s to leaving self hatred behind and embracing our magic in 2017.”
Have you ever wanted to use the sassy girl emoji more?
Megan, who currently works as a carer for her older sister who has cerebral palsy, explained she started her blog because she wanted to let people know that there’s an alternative to “hating your body for your whole life”.
She added: “When I found the body positive community it was the first time I ever realised that being happy in my own skin was an option, before that I’d spent years on crash diets and extreme workout regimes, and before that I’d battled and overcome anorexia nervosa.
“Seeing all these people of all shapes and sizes unapologetically loving themselves opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking, and I knew that I had to help spread the message to save people from a lifetime of self hatred.”
And she called New Year the “diet industry’s dream season”.
“Every year we’re bombarded with the message that in order to be beautiful, valuable, and happy we have to do whatever we can to shrink our bodies”, said Megan.
“Most of the time this comes in the form of dangerously restrictive crash diets, or laxatives wrapped up in pretty packaging and marketed as ‘detoxes’.
“I want people to understand that the biggest industries in the world profit from making us believe that we’re not good enough, and I don’t want them to buy into that lie anymore. It isn’t our weight making us unhappy, it’s a culture that’s convinced us all that happiness only comes in a smaller size. ”
And, if you still need more reasons to think Megan is a total inspo when it comes to loving our bodies, here’s her message to people who felt guilty after eating their Christmas lunch.
“Tummies are supposed to grow and expand and let us experience all kinds of delicious moments,” she wrote in the caption. “You are no less beautiful, valuable, or loveable whether you are full or empty.”
Preach it, girl. We definitely know whose Instagram feed we will be checking out if we need a reminder to be body positive in 2017.
