Honestly? I’d hoped we’d seen the death of before and after weight loss photos.
You know the ones I mean: two side-by-side shots of the same person – usually a woman – with the ‘before’ showing a slumped posture, a sad demeanour, probably no make-up and either a larger body, or a body that’s not just what society deems as ‘toned’. The ‘after’ shot shows the ‘glow-up’: abs, ‘toned’ arms and legs, immaculate hair and make-up, perfect posture and a beaming smile.
She did it. She got her transformation.
Instagram was chock full of these visual body makeover stories back in the late 2010s – I remember my explore feed being wall-to-wall weight loss. I used the pictures as ‘inspiration’ and ‘motivation’; I even printed a few out to keep on my desk or pin on the fridge. If I could just get there, achieve what these people had managed, it would guarantee me happiness, success, praise and worthiness.
It took me a long time to realise that these images were problematic. They weren’t serving as inspiration or motivation; they were merely reinforcing in me that I wouldn’t be happy until I got my ‘after’ picture – something that proved very unattainable and unrealistic to me without developing a full-blown eating disorder.
But that only scratches the surface of why these transformation pictures are so damaging. They perpetuate weight stigma and anti-fat bias by portraying larger bodies in a negative light and equate things like worth and happiness with thinness. We never see a transformation where the subject has gained weight paired with a positive message, do we? That way round, the fluctuation signals failure. I’m sure the comment section would no longer be full of praise, admiration and desperate demands to know details.
What’s more, they are quite literally a snapshot, a momentary glimpse into someone’s life. We have no idea what’s behind these before and afters: how did they lose the weight? What did they have to sacrifice: their mental health, their physical wellbeing – or both? Did their social life suffer? Did it impact their relationships? I’m asking from experience, because all of the above applied to me when I eventually achieved my ‘after’. I was suffering with an eating disorder and I’ve never been so unhappy and discontent in my life. As people heaped praise on me for how I looked, told me I was their ’thinspo’ and asked me how I managed it, I felt like a fraud for this disconnect with how I actually felt.
Transformation pictures trigger unhealthy comparison – but perhaps none so much as postpartum transformations. ‘Back into my pre-pregnancy jeans!’, ‘Down to pre-baby weight!’: my heart sinks when I see these. What a difficult and challenging time in a woman’s life – the last thing they need is to feel pressured into changing their often-still healing bodies with urgency, or at all.
As the body positivity and self-acceptance movement gained momentum in the early 2020s and we had open conversations about the potentially toxic nature of transformation photos, there was a noticeable – and welcome! – decline in this content on Instagram. But with the rise in popularity of TikTok and users realising the viral potential of such posts, we yet again see ourselves immersed in before and after photos. The hashtag #weightlosstransformation has a staggering 16.6 billion views on the app – and this is filtering back over to Instagram, with 14.8 million posts living under the same hashtag.
With the resurgence of this type of content, I appreciate how easy it is to fall back into old habits of comparison. But I urge you to resist: please don’t see your body as a ‘before’ picture. It’s hugely damaging to your mental health, often your physical health, too, and your general wellbeing.
Waiting until you’ve lost *insert random numbers of pounds/kilos* to wear the jeans or go on the beach or attend that event is a waste of invaluable time on an arbitrary goal that is unlikely to offer you true fulfilment. Despite what we’re taught, real fulfilment only really comes from making a life that is meaningful: from building precious relationships and forming connections, pursuing passions, discovering your purpose, building a sense of self and living with compassion – both for yourself and others.
You are not a ‘before’ picture and you’re not an ‘after’ picture, either – and neither are any of those people from the transformation shots we see online. We are all living, breathing, multi-faceted, talented human beings whose true beauty cannot be captured in a picture.
A picture cannot convey someone’s warmth and compassion, how they make people laugh, how they’re loyal friends or the mark they’ve made on the world.
Having a thinner waist is not going to be your legacy, I promise.
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