Plus-size model hits back at people who claim she’s ‘promoting obesity on Instagram’

Alexa Phelece is a plus-size model with quite a following on Instagram. The creative, who regularly uses the photo sharing site, predominately shares body-positive messages with her fan base.

But a recent post of Phelece wearing the same swimming costume as a much thinner woman prompted accusations that she was 'promoting obesity' to her followers.

Below the side-by-side comparison, the model wrote in the caption:

BOTH are beautiful - BOTH should be treated equally - both should be able to love their bodies - BOTH should be judged on the content of their character NOT their skin color and definitely NOT their size - Both women are equally capable and worthy.

And while she received loads of positive comments, others criticised Phelece for the photo.

Like this comment:

She told Yahoo:

At first I was getting a lot of love and encouragement to continue my self love journey but it quickly got very negative. I received a lot of comments mentioning the status of my health and how I am promoting obesity.

I am so heartbroken to see that there are so many people in the world that just spread hate.

This whole post was supposed to be breaking the stereotypes that those two individual pictures carry based on our skin color and our sizes. I wanted to prove a point that not everything that you see on the outside reflects your inside and there’s so much more to a person in the physical appearance.

Phelece explained what was on her mind when she published the post:

I thought about how deceiving that photo is. I also thought about how so many women who purchased this bathing suit look nothing like the model in the photo, and that does not make us wrong, it makes us human.

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