Australia's Next Top Model star praised for 'normalising flaws' with changing room photo

The 24-year-old wants people to know 'they are beautiful too'

Former Australia’s Next Top Model contestant Taylah Roberts has been praised for “normalising flaws” after posting a realistic changing room selfie on social media.

The 24-year-old shared the photo with her 47,000 followers on Instagram to encourage women to accept their bodies.

The image showed Roberts standing with her back to the camera as she posed in her underwear below the fluorescent lights of the changing room.

In the caption, Roberts admitted that she would have previously struggled to share this kind of photo but hoped it would inspire other women to think positively about the way they look.

“I could write a long a** caption and talk about how this once would have made me break down and cry but instead I’m just gonna leave it here with the intent of normalising flaws in the hopes that someone will see this at the right time and know they are beautiful too, no matter how you look in an awfully lit changeroom #bodyconfidence,” Roberts wrote.

The post, which has been liked more than 5,000 times, has since received hundreds of comments from people thanking Roberts for sharing such a realistic photo.

“Thank you”, one person wrote on Instagram.

“I've cried too many times in the change room. Not anymore.”

Another added: “Changing room lights should be illegal! I love my body but sometimes looking at it under those lights has almost brought me to tears.”

A third person wrote: “Love how you are honest and real about life and positive body images “women empowering women” THANK YOU [sic].”

The honest post follows a before-and-after photo Roberts shared on the same platform in which she condemned the fashion industry’s attitude towards body image.

“All I see in the photo on the left is sadness, exhaustion, insecurity and lack of worth beyond size. This is what an industry only focusing on what your outer shell looks like does to you,” Roberts wrote in the caption.

“I was always, always fighting to stay that way. Terrified that in an instant my dreams would be ripped away from me if the number on a measuring tape had increased by half an inch.

“I love that fashion is a form of self-expression and art but at what cost? After years of feeling unworthy and left with a lot of work to do to get to the place I am now (pictured on the right) I’ll take my health, happiness and my size 12/14 a** over EVER feeling like that again."