At its best, social media is a great way to keep up wit all your friends — and it can be a source of motivation and inspiration. But if you've ever felt drained and disheartened by the seemingly perfect lives people display on their Instagram accounts, you're not alone.
That's why fitness blogger Sara Puhto wants you to know that all the "perfection" you see on your feed could simply be a trick of the camera angle. In a side-by-side comparison of one photo taken directly after the other, Puhto explained that the ideal "beach body" can sometimes just come down to a well-angled pose.
"These were taken a few seconds apart while I was at the beach the other day, the photo on the left is what I look like relaxed and not posing, basically how I look 99% of the time in a bikini!" she wrote on the caption. "And the one on the right is how I look in good lighting, flexed and posing."
Puhto also wrote that she was inspired to share the photos after realizing how easy it is to get caught up in other people's photos.
"I wanted to share this because I know how it feels to go through Instagram and see photos of people looking amazing on the beach — which are usually planned and not candid, that's why they look so good," she wrote. "So don't get caught up on how they look and compare that to your everyday relaxed body."
Her photos make a great point about social media, as well as so-called "beach bodies." (If you have a body and you're at the beach, congrats! You have a beach body.) Puhto's post makes the point that no matter how pressured we may feel to have an ideal body, even the bodies that are celebrated as "ideal" aren't always real. That doesn't make those bodies any less beautiful, but either way, it's important to know that we don't have to strive towards perfection.
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