Let me be the first to say that I am so tired of going on Instagram and seeing celebrities with pregnancy bellies the size of mine after a big lunch.
People idolize these pregnancies as "sexy pregnancies" in which the woman pregnant still looks extraordinarily tiny while eight months along. Now, this isn't to say that these women aren't carrying healthy pregnancies or that they should feel bad for being small — I'm just saying that this is not the norm.
As if women don't already have enough on their plates when comes to looks, now we have to have sexy bodies even during pregnancy? My concern is that women are going to feel inferior to other women if they carry a normal pregnancy, or even worse, will take those insecurities too far and restrict their diet so that they don't show as much. This isn't a healthy trend, and it needs to stop.
Pregnancy has never been a time in which a woman's body has looked the best, but it's always been a time in which her body is doing the most. Women are saints for devoting their bodies and their lives to create another person, so why are we turning this incredulous task into an even harder one for women by putting expectations on how sexy they should look during a pregnancy?
This trend usually involves celebrities or models who have the time, personal trainers, and resources to get their bodies into incredible shape before and during pregnancy. Oftentimes they carry their pregnancies with a sculpted abdominal area, creating a “small looking/sexy pregnancy.” By the way it’s carrying on, this trend will inevitably end up body-shaming women who carry normally, which is disgusting to me.
Captions on these women’s pictures who seldom show are usually something like "I hope I look like this when I'm pregnant," "Wifey goals," or something along those lines, and it's disturbing. If you're one of those people who doesn't show, that's great, but just because one woman does show doesn't mean that you should feel bad or constrict yourself in any way just because a Victoria's Secret model looks glowing in all of her pregnancy pictures.
I've always looked up to pregnant women. How crazy selfless are they to give up their bodies? When my mother was pregnant with me and my twin, her stomach was so big she could use it a table. I never thought twice about this. Never have I ever looked at a pregnant woman and thought she should look any other way, and to those of you who are catching onto this trend, thinking that this kind of pregnancy body should be achieved: How dare you. Don't turn this natural process into a trend.
Leave this one alone, Instagram.