Several weeks ago, Demi Lovato posted a series of photos of her bikini-clad body on Snapchat, most notably of which (in my opinion) is this one:

Before I get to the meat of this article, I just want to say that I am a HUGE Demi Lovato fan. I've been a fan of hers since she landed a recurring role on the Disney Channel short "As the Bell Rings" in 2007. She's an extraordinary singer as well as an incredible actress, who has been courageously outspoken about her battle with mental illness for years. I love her so much that, when she debuted a purple-and-silver ombre back in 2014, I quickly found a salon near my apartment and dropped a significant amount of money to achieve the same look (as well as to maintain it for months after).

Despite my love and admiration for Demi, however, I take issue with this photo. I know that she probably had the best of intentions when posting this, and I applaud her for posting such a vulnerable photo of herself on social media. It truly is beautiful to see Demi view her body with kindness and acceptance, after a very public struggle with disordered eating. But even though I assume that all she wanted to do by sharing this photo was to promote body positivity to her fans, it fell a little short in that regard for me.

It's important to recognize that most people's bodies don't adhere to the ideal body type that gets propagated through social media and entertainment outlets. But claiming that your body isn't perfect is still comparing it to a notion of the "ideal body". You're still saying that your body is not what it "should" be, and thereby propagating the ridiculous standards of beauty that we're fed on a daily basis.

Every single body in this world is perfect just the way it is, and you want to know why?

It keeps you alive.

You wake up every morning - heart pumping, lungs working, blood rushing through your veins - because your body is a beautiful machine that continues to function despite everything that it gets put through.

That seems pretty perfect to me.

The perfect body exists, ladies and gentlemen, and it is whatever your body was in the past, whatever it is right now, and whatever it changes into in the future.

Trust me when I say that I understand (on a level that I wish I didn't) how difficult it can be to love your body for what it is. It's easy to look at your stretch marks, less-than-defined abs, or hips that always seem to have a hard time fitting into jeans, and wish that you could look like the beautiful people in the magazines at the grocery store.

But I also understand (on a level that I'm glad I do) how invigorating it is to put down those magazines and stop trying to figure out how you stack up to other people. Yes, the people in those magazines are beautiful creatures. But so are you.

So take a deep breath and chin up. You have a ton of amazing things to go accomplish in the short amount of time that you're on this Earth; things that you will never achieve if you spend all of your time and energy counting calories or obsessing over how your thighs touch.