Model called a 'breath of fresh air' for sharing photo of her stretch marks

Model Rozanna Purcell has been applauded for being real on her Instagram page, by showing the stretch marks, veins and hair follicles on her legs.

The 28-year-old, who won Miss Universe Ireland in 2010, shared a snap of a bowl of fruit sitting in between her legs with her 265,000 followers, as she holidays in Montenegro.

“Looking forward to getting home and cooking up some recipes,” the fitness blogger caption her snap.

“Ps. On another note it's rare to see unsmoothend legs on the gram- they have veins, hair follicles, stretch marks and sometimes tan coming off.”

The post has already been liked by over 7,000 people, with fans of the stunner saying Roz is ‘like a breath of fresh air’.

“My forever fave on instagram in a world of fake you make everything real,” one person said.

“Love the realness of your legs.... so many airbrushed bodies had me worrying something is wrong with my body,” another person said.

It isn’t the first time Roz has stood proud and showed her stretch marks on her Insta page.

“Stretch marks are something that caused me to never swim on holidays , worry about what others thought, avoid shorts, walking in front of people,” she previously said on a snap of her standing in front of a pool in Marrakech.

“Growing up I was so confused when I first got them I was like these are so cool I'm so different, learning as I hit teenage years that I shouldn't be so proud of them and in fact they were not considered beautiful .”

Roz went on to say that after posting the photo one woman mailed her to tell her that she tells her kids to look at their stretch marks as ‘a line for every month/year they grow, just like a tree’.

“Thanks so much for sharing this! It’s so important for us all to see that not only does everyone have insecurities but that everybody has marks, “imperfections” or blemishes. We’re all perfectly imperfect and flawesome(to quote the great Tyra Banks),” one of her followers said on the post.

“I am a man with stretch marks and I really appreciate these types of images of girls showing their marks. You look very feminine and great,” a follower said.

The Natural Born Feeder blogger has been open about her struggles with her body and food in the past.

For Eating Disorder Awareness Week in March she uploaded a shocking before and after image to her Instagram page.

“I feel sad looking back, I wasted so many years putting myself down, missing opportunities and worst of all not being me around my friends and family,” Roz captioned the snap.

She admits that the girl on the left hand side of the photo would regularly binge on food, then purge and throw up on repeat, not respecting or being grateful for her health.

Rozanna said that through therapy and reaching out for help she began to realise how important it was for her to ‘start being me again’.

“I wish I could go back and talk to my younger self sometimes, but I can't & I guess that's why it's good to talk about it now so maybe even one person will go ask for help,” she wrote.

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