A woman has taken to Instagram to post side-by-side photos to show the difference between perfection and 'reality'.
These pictures are a breath of fresh air on a social media website that, depending on who you follow, is typically dominated by impossible-to-obtain beauty and lifestyle standards, which can have a detrimental effect on your mental health.
One famous face who has used their platform to spread a body-positive message is reality star, Jazz Jennings:In an interview with Insider, 23-year-old Sara Puhto explained that she began documenting her own fitness journey on the social media website in 2015. However, it wasn't long before she realized that she was falling prey to the darker side of the app.
"I was posting fitness photos only, which consisted of me flexing my muscles and were all taken from my best angles," she told Insider.
Speaking about the detrimental effect social media influencers can have, she said: "It made me feel insecure and bad about my body because I was comparing my body to theirs.
"I realized that the photos that I was posting may have been making other people feel like this."
She explained that she didn't want to harm anyone else's mental health as she recognized that her body didn't always look like how she portrayed it on social media, saying: "I noticed that my body didn't look like this 24/7, and decided to share my thoughts and what I really looked like most of the time."
Now, Puhto, who is from Finland, uses her social media for one main purpose: to demystify influencer culture, and we are here for it.
"I started posting more body-positive photos in October of 2016, and have been doing so consistently since then," she said, before adding, "It has helped me realize that many of us pose in certain ways to make ourselves look better in photos.
"When you suck in your tummy, flex, stand up straight, and pop out your booty, you look different in photos."
Puhto rightfully pointed out that many of the poses adopted by Instagram influencers are not a reflection of how people stand and position themselves in everyday life, and therefore they are not "an accurate representation of how someone looks."
"These images are not a realistic depiction of bodies and the diversity of people in society," Puhto said. "We shouldn't feel the need to change in order to love ourselves."
If you'd like a more realistic, body-positive Instagram feed, you can follow Puhto here.