Body Image and Social Media, What’s the Connection?
Body image on social media is a very important subject in today’s society. Social media affects your mental health and body image and ultimately affects your moods, thinking, and behavior. Being able to adjust appearances so comfortably only shows misrepresented views of body image. Social media puts a focus on physical appearance, it’s also likely to result in persistent self-condemnation and low self-esteem. While it may be seen as innocuous to modify pictures, when a vast majority of people do this, it continues with the pattern and assists with the growth of poor mental health. Overall, there will be videos, articles, images, and a podcast to better understand why body image issues and social media share a connection.
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The infographic explains how social media affects young girls and women. It also explains the ways to help treat your body image issues on social media.
The article from medical news today explains how social media use affects body image for young women. In the article, they discuss the findings of a study that was done by Jennifer Mills, associate professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada, and Jacqueline Hogue, a Ph.D. student in the department’s Clinical Program. They split up 118 women, ages 18–27, those in the first group logged into Facebook and Instagram for 5 minutes or more and were asked to find one peer of roughly the same age whom they “explicitly considered more attractive”. Then, Mills and Hogue asked all of the participants to comment on the photos of their peers. In the control group, the women logged into Facebook or Instagram for at least 5 minutes and left a comment on a post of a family member whom they did not consider more attractive. The overall finding was important because it explained that social media partaking with attractive peers increased negative thoughts about their bodies. This research is very important because it shows how something simple as looking at someone's pictures on social media affects our views on ourselves.
The video below there are three sets of categories of women, the mature, the teen, and the child. For starters, the older women who use social media every day tell their opinion on how social media increases their body image and self-esteem. These women are then photographed, photoshopped, and then shown what they would look like with societal beauty standards.
With the teens, they sort of felt the same way, but they explain what they would change with their bodies. Some answers said were blonde hair, straight hair, smaller breast, and freckles. As for the children, they wanted to be superheroes. With them not being exposed to the media yet, they do not have to worry about societal beauty standards on social media.
The article below explains the studies of how social media can have significant effects on the mental health of children, and body image in young girls especially. When scrolling through several social media platforms such as Instagram, young girls and teens are unconsciously comparing themselves to the evidently perfect bodies and lives of influencers and other celebrities. As someone who has done this a few times, it is rare to know that you are comparing yourself to others as you scroll.
Since social media “helps” create body image issues, more women are starting to get plastic surgery; they are getting cosmetic surgeries to “fit in”. They want the procedure to feel like the best version of themselves. Dr. Dennis Schimpf, founder of Sweetgrass Plastic Surgery says, “cell phones, selfies, and social media platforms have greatly driven the desire for plastic surgery”. With everyone using social media now it is easy to get influenced by the media. More people are getting surgery now more than ever because they want to look like a specific influencer.
The podcast will be discussions about personal experiences with social media and body image issues, and other impactful topics. Hope you enjoy it.
Special guest: LaVaysha & Brianna Cooper
This is Bri’s Story.
Lastly, the Instagram profiles down below help encourage body positivity and continuously post inspiring quotes and photos. Be sure to check them out!
