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Four moms showed off their postpartum bodies on social media and were met with hate — but also love

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GILBERT, Ariz. — After posting a celebratory photo online, four women are banding together to ignore the hate on social media and embrace the love.

Arizona mom Bethanie Garcia recently posted a photo of herself and three other mothers who became friends online a year ago and recently met at a conference.

It wasn't just any photo of four friends, but one that exposed their postpartum bodies of different shapes and sizes.

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“Is this an advertisement for why women should get tummy tucks?”⠀ ⠀ “Why aren’t there any fit women in this photo? Not every postpartum body is fat and loose.”⠀ ⠀ “Why has society made it ok to bash women who bounce back yet glorify women who can’t lose weight?”⠀ ⠀ “How about dieting?”⠀ ⠀ “Posts like this bother me. Not losing the weight is a choice.”⠀ ⠀ “I’m a mother of 4 but I’m also a smokin’ hot wife because that’s my duty. No way I’d be happy or settle to look like this.”⠀ ⠀ “Photos like this tear women apart.”⠀ ⠀ “So, you’re saying that skinny women don’t have real bodies?”⠀ ⠀ Just a small sample of the comments we’ve received over the past few days since our original post went live. It’s a shame that the point has been completely missed by some of the people that have taken time out of their day to comment. (The point being: the four of us have been friends online for a long time and finally met IRL and took a last minute photo together...of our different postpartum body types...to show that all body types are beautiful.)⠀ ⠀ If you look at this photo and your first thought is “why are there no skinny women”, you have bigger issues to deal with, my friend. You can look literally anywhere: film, TV, Instagram, magazines, video games and see skinny women. Other body types are absolutely underrepresented in media and it causes women with those body types to feel less than... to feel like they’re not good enough.⠀ ⠀ I want to encourage anyone who felt the need to leave any of the above comments to dig deeper, self-reflect, gain some perspective, learn. Your comment says WAY fucking more about you than it does about us.⠀ ⠀ Be better.

A post shared by bethanie garcia ⋒ (@thegarciadiaries) on

"We received over 2,000+ messages and comments filled with hate," Garcia told KNXV in a message.

She says despite the "haters and trolls," they are still standing tall thanks to women who saw their photo and commented saying, "finally, a body that looks like mine" or "this photo saved me" or "I struggle with my body image and this made me feel so much less alone."

Garcia says, "Those comments are messages [that] make it all worth it!"