These three photos show the problem with Instagram

Lauren Tickner, a fitness blogger from Surrey, England, has demonstrated how deceptive 'transformation' photos can be.

Posting to Instagram on Monday, Tickner shared three side by side images, supposedly 30 seconds apart, which reveal a drastically different body shape.

The secret is your pose and posture.

Her Instagram account is @laurenfitness.

Writing in the caption, Tickner explained:

POSTURE changes EVERYTHING! Posing is SO powerful: what you see of people on social media is NOT how they look 24/7 in real life!

She explained how she created each image and why she had decided to share them:

I don't care how 'overdone' people say these photos are: I think they are SO important. I sometimes still stumble across a photo and think 'agh, I wish I looked like that...' BUT, they uploaded that photo for a REASON! They probably took 10000 others and chose that ONE photo. (I know I'm guilty of taking looooads...

The post has been liked by more than 32,000 Instagram users.

She does post the odd transformation photo, but her message is that there is no shortcut to fitness. She preaches exercising and eating healthily.

And Tickner's other transformation photos have warned against 'over-exercising'.

And what a difference feeling bloated can make to your appearance in a photograph.

In addition to her Instagram, Tickner posts fitness videos and advice to her YouTube channel Lauren Tickner.

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