Wife And Husband's Instagram Photos Go Viral And Spark Body Image Debate

Jasmine Owens is a 25-year-old student and mother of two from Honolulu who recently took to Instagram to share a vacation photo of her and her husband. A caption alongside the photo includes an inspirational note about learning to love her body as it is, and the message is going viral. 

Owens writes:

"Over the years this man has loved every curve, every roll, and every stretch mark on my body. I never understood why!"  

"How could he love something that isn't "perfect"? How could a man who was "born fit" love someone like me! I don't have a flat stomach, I jiggle when I walk, hell if I run up the stairs to fast my body claps (lmao)!!" 

"But now I see I do have the "perfect" body!! Every roll, every curve and every stretch mark is put on me just perfect to make both of us happy!!! I love my body and I finally see why he does too!!" 

The post received over 70,000 likes and hundreds of comments, which were largely positive. But many weren't, and Owens shared a screenshot of one such comment that told her to, "stop your delusion, these pics are gross and has already been shared as a meme."

She replied to the comment by saying:

"Earlier this morning I got this very negative comment! Starting this journey publicly I knew that I would get some negative comments and I TRIED to prepare myself for the day that they started. But when I saw this comment no lie it hurt! It stabbed me hard, harder then I thought it was going to!" 

"So I had to take a step back and think to myself .. why would someone be so hateful of another person! Why would they say such rude things. But then I figured it out! People like this hate on others because they are not happy with themselves! This person does not know me! They don't know that I am VERY healthy and WILL live for my kids! They don't know that I eat healthy, hike, go to the gym all the time and can most likely out lift them any day!" 

"Just because I'm a big girl doesn't mean I'm unhealthy and promoting being unhealthy! I'm simply promoting loving yourself the way you are! Never did I say unhealthy is the way to be. So for others that want to downplay me as a person and what I am trying to accomplish, go ahead leave your negative comment! They will only be used as fuel to my fire of promoting happiness!!"

Jazzy told the BBC that she's grown accustom to comments like the above, but that she also received thousands of messages of support.

"I never thought that it would blow up like it did. When it happened, I was in complete shock. Anxiety through the roof, mixed emotions of happy and scared at the same time."

She went on to explain that she made an Instagram page to share her battle with depression and how she learned to love her body. 

"I hated the way I looked during the depression. But when I started feeling better, I thought I should share that experience and inspire other women that my be going through the same thing to feel the same way." 

"Even though it scares me to have the whole world see me, it also brings me joy to know that I am not hiding any longer." 

"This response has motivated me to love myself even more and to try to help other women and men love themselves - no matter what they look like." 

Her husband, Keenan, says that he's always been supportive of his wife sharing her fitness progress on Instagram:

"It felt amazing to see my wife story being shared across the world as inspiration for other young women."