Instagram Blogger Sia Cooper Touches on Positive Body Image Despite Society's Beauty Standards

Gettyimages | Delmaine Donson

Society's definition of what a "perfect" body is has significantly altered over time. Photoshopping to create this so-called "perfect" body of today has, unfortunately, become prevalent on various social media platforms. This has caused many women to feel the need to keep up with this fictional, "perfect" body, instead of embracing their natural outer physicality.

Nevertheless, many socially aware influencers, such as Instagram blogger, Sia Cooper, has voiced out on this issue in order to promote the importance of loving every inch of your body, regardless of shape and size.

Inspired by founder of Pop Flex Active, Cassey Ho, Sia Cooper decided to post pictures of her body photoshopped in different ways to showcase how society defined a "perfect" body during the Roaring 1920's, Hollywood Era 1950's, Swinging 1960's and 1970's, Supermodel 1980's, Heroin 1990's and postmodern beauty of today. In her caption, she further discusses their altered definitions in utter detail, while explaining the primary women figures that have influenced them to shape those perceptions, which, too me, is very effective.

Gettyimages | Baron

To talk about the caption in utter detail, Cooper stated that the 1920's was all about women having boyish bodies and short hair. Thanks to Marilyn Monroe, the 1950's was all about having curves and a slimmer waist. The 1960's and 1970's had a trend of having "a twig and girly, adolescent appearance", Cooper captioned. Supermodels such as Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford were heavily influenced in the 1980s, so having an athletic body type was ideal in the eyes of society at that time. The 1990s was about having a "gaunt malnourished look", and many women today are having plastic surgery in the hopes of mimicking the flat tummies, boobs and butts of Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez

Gettyimages | Elke Meitzel

Cooper executed this action in order to inform the obsession that women had and still have over these falsely advertising bodies, and to, therefore, convince them to love the bodies that they naturally have. As a result, she received over 200 comments and 6,000 likes on her post, and she replied on a lot of them to heavily interact with her followers on the positive body image movement.

One Instagram user commented, "Loveeeee this! So true. Beauty standards constantly change and if we try to keep changing them how can we ever feel good?!", to which Cooper replied, "Amen."

Another user commented, "I've been following you on here and Facebook for years now, and honestly you always posting real vs insta and stuff along those lines helped me beat my eating disorder and helps me every single time I see them. I may not always love how I look now, but I'm healthy and working toward a healthier life in a GOOD way. Thank you for being awesome", to which Cooper replied, "Thank you."

This truly demonstrates the positive impact that Cooper has brought on many body-conscious women. Let's love and embrace our natural selves, instead of shaming our bodies.