Model, 21-year-old Georgia Gibbs posted a photo of herself and her mate, 22-year-old Katie Wasley having a giggle at Sydney Harbour two months ago.
She captioned the pic 'Love you unconditionally', to celebrate the pair's enduring friendship.
Unfortunately, though, the comments didn't reflect her message of positivity.
The comments have since been deleted, but according to Instagram, they said she was a bad friend for even standing by her friend, since she was obviously doing it to make herself look slimmer.
We posted this picture online, just as best friends going out on the weekend, it got reposted a lot and the controversy started.. You have photoshopped yourself thinner or your friend bigger, what kind of friend are you? Was one of the comments, it broke my heart because Kate and I are best friends why would I do that? The fact that a simple picture of two people together went so viral purely because of their body types shocked me... and @any.body_co was created because no one should have to deal with that and it shouldn't even be acknowledged, all I see here is two women.. not one "skinny" woman and one "curvy" woman, stop comparing everyone to each other and accept every person as beautiful in their own right.
Instead of responding negatively, or wallowing, the girls decided to clap-back in an innovative way.
This inspired the two models to start up a joint Instagram account called Any Body in an attempt to send a positive message out there about women of different sizes being equally healthy, happy and beautiful.
They caption the beautiful images with inspirational captions, like,
In reality bodies are just bodies, what's powerful is seeing two very different but individually perfect bodies next to each other & embracing that, well that's totally 100% normal and okay... We're best friends we walk next to each other every day and love each other for who we are and for so much more than our appearances, size 6 or 16 WHO CARES, health & happiness over size!
They encourage their followers to add their own pictures with the tag #LOVEanyBody.
The pair spoke to Daily Mail Australia about their mission. Wasley told them;
It's not often that a healthy body is marketed to us in all different shapes and sizes. We want girls and women to stop comparing themselves to others because we are all so uniquely beautiful in our own way. Health is more important than size and healthy bodies come in many different shapes and sizes...We all have imperfections and things we are insecure about but we are all human and these things are normal and beautiful. They make us who we are.
The Body Positive movement of Instagram shows no sign of stopping, and as long as we assume beautiful women like this are in competition with each other, opposed to supporting each other, it looks like we need it.
Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.
