Why This Woman's Butt Transformation Made People Online Hate Her
Proud of your workout results? Prepare for the Instagram hate.
Everything I Do / Shutterstock When Liza Parker shared her photo on Instagram in the summer of 2016, she never expected that it would lead to this.
The then-29-year-old Ontario native just wanted to share the amazing results of the workout regime she was following. She expected kudos, and instead was met with vicious trolls accusing her of faking the photos or of getting plastic surgery.
Why did her picture garner so much negative attention?
It was shared by Parker’s guru, social media fitness maven Kayla Itsines. The Australian Instagram phenomenon has a Bikini Body Guide that has garnered a massive following, thanks to its impressive results.
When Parker checked social media after Itsines’s share, she couldn’t believe it. No one thought her photo was real.
And her butt? Well, that was just too good to be true.
Haters accused her of having undergone plastic surgery. The tamer taunts hinted that her bomb butt might be the result of photoshopping. One user commented, “This is not a work out result, that is called surgery!” And another wrote, “Photoshop much!!!!”
Parker, who is a registered nurse, opened up about what it felt like to receive such negative backlash in an interview.
“I felt like I was being discredited for all my had work and dedication to my fitness routine and this awesome program. I put on my favorite shorts, was feeling super confident that day after my workout and posed to accentuate the gains I made. I never thought I would be attacked or accused of [surgical enhancements],” she said.
What planet is this that we live on where everyone just assumes people are being fake 100 percent of the time? If Parker photoshopped the pictures, she’s more gifted than any Kardashian (and that’s saying something).
She also seems like an intensely public person if she’s willing to share her before and after images this way. Why would she lie about having plastic surgery? It just doesn’t make sense.
Parker agreed, and made a video on her now-deleted Instagram showcasing her transformed figure in the same workout garb she wore in the hotly contested photo. She tore into the trolls accusing her of undergoing plastic surgery, and showed how the photo was just a good angle, and the result of all of her hard-earned work.
Regarding the video, Parker said, “I thought if I posted a clip showing myself from different angles... that I could prove something to those that doubted me. On social media we often share the best of the best. We find the best angle, best light and often the best filter and it is not always an accurate portrayal of real life so I wanted to get real with everyone.”
Parker revealed that she began her Bikini Body Guide regime back in May 2015, meaning that she had been working on getting her body in shape for more than a year before posting the transformation photo.
She said, “Before starting I did not have much of a figure. I had a very restrictive diet and weighed everything I put into my body. I was exercising obsessively, about two hours of cardio on average daily and trying to attain an unrealistic number on the scale. I feel confident and strong. I don’t quantify my progress in terms of my weight.”
You don’t have to believe in “the perfect bikini body” to feel for Parker. Sure, she might have decided that she needed to transform the way she looked, but that’s her prerogative. And even if she had gotten plastic surgery, who cares? It's her body, her choice.
We all do the best we can to feel good about ourselves. For some of us, that means trying new workouts regimens and sharing the results on social media for support and praise to keep us going. For others, that might mean going under the knife.
We owe it to our fellow women to be supportive and stop the hate. I’m kind of tempted to just post a series of photos of my totally “unready” bikini body and boast about all the plastic surgery I’ve had done to get to this glorious point.
Sadly, I think that joke would be lost on the type of people who keep insisting on tearing women like Parker down.
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a freelance writer and the former Senior Editor of Pop Culture at Newsweek with a passion for lifestyle, geek news, and true crime.