Single mom Megan Carter is embracing the new curves she‘s gained around her bust and hips since becoming pregnant with her now 18-month-old son, Brody.
But she doesn’t want to hear from others how great her body looks, how lucky she is to only have put on 20 pounds while pregnant and how her dieting efforts are fast melting the weight off.
“Don’t comment on my body at all,” Carter, 27, a part-time waitress from Houston, Tex., told The Post.
“People saying things like, ‘You look great for having a baby,’ might not be mean-spirited,” she said. “But it does have a negative affect on my body image and mental health.”
Carter is one of the thousands who’ve used the TikTok-trending #PostBabyBody hashtag to call for an end to postpartum body-praising. While the viral tag, which has amassed over 41.4 million views, is being employed by moms for various reasons, Carter and Co. are using it to say they’re sick of people making comments — even positive ones — about their physiques.
“You look great for just having a baby [is a] backhanded compliment,” TikTok user Jailya Dvis wrote in the caption of a TikTok video addressing the issue. “Thank you, but no thanks.”
Chloe Ferrari, another postpartum mom on TikTok, revealed that someone rudely told her, “You look so good now that you’ve lost so much [pregnancy] weight.” She virtually blasted the unnamed critic for their thinly-veiled barb.
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Carter ultimately had to seek therapy after one too many nice-nasty comments.
“One of my friends said something about my new weight, and I just remember snapping,” the brunette said. I raised my voice, I was cursing. It was not a good situation.”
Connecting with a counselor has helped to diminish some of her postpartum anxieties, but she fears that the disguised niceties will be her perpetual burden to bear.
“As a new mom, there are so many things you have to get use to,” she said. “But my body image wasn’t something I struggled with until people kept bringing it up … now I feel like [I’ll be subjected to] these comments forever.”
Carter suggested that rather than making mention of a her changing form, folks talk about how well she is taking care of herself and the baby.
“I’m just a person trying to get used to my new body,” she said. “And the backhanded compliments don’t help.”
