How Social Media Affects The Way Body Image Is Seen

By: Samantha Olaguez

Photo Credits: Siberianart

The social issue I chose to discuss is the issue that social media has on women's body image. With the uprising of technology came social media, the concept of influencers, and the ideal body type. The issue of body image has always been around, especially with the growth of media and entertainment. The perfect body type is ever-changing. With a slimmer body and bigger breasts for women in the '90s and early 2000s to being “slim thick,” meaning to have a toned and tiny waist while being curvy in the right places. In this blog, I want to specify how social media now affects teenage girls' body image and mental health. 

The whole concept of social media and influencers gained popularity around the early 2010s with the uprising of the use of Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. Since then, the number of users has just kept growing. Teens and younger adults are the main age group using social media frequently. According to Pew Internet and American Life Project (2015), “92% of teens ages 13-17 are online daily, 24% report being online ‘almost constantly,’ and 71% report using more than one social media application”. Adolescence is when young people get to know more about themselves and are still very impressionable. With social media, many young girls are exposed to the concept of body image and the “perfect” body. This ideal body image does not just affect the person who’s using it; this way of thinking rubs off on their families as well. The article “I don’t need people to tell me I’m pretty on social media:” A qualitative study of social media and body image in early adolescent girls by C. Blair Burnette a, Melissa A. Kwitowski a, Suzanne E. Mazzeo states that there are girls as young as six years old that show a preference for bodies thinner than their own. It is so upsetting seeing how we feel or how these standards are not only affecting us, but it is rubbing off on the people we care about as well, especially our younger siblings and cousins. 

One of the earliest memories I have about social media and body image would be on Tumblr. A trend at the time was #thinspo where people would post images of people pretty thin and use it as inspiration for their ideal body type and weight. At the time, it was trending. I was not as active on social media, but it was something I had heard about in passing. Looking back, it is kind of insane that this is something that many young girls participated in and that they saw daily. In recent years, the new trend has been “fitspiration,” which promotes a fit and healthy lifestyle. At first, it was something inspirational, but now its turned into some type of toxic promotion of body image and diet issues. Fitspiration is built off the idolization of skinny fit bodies and restrictive eating. In the article Social media and body image: Recent trends and future directions, the author states that “exposure to fitspiration content can increase body dissatisfaction.” This also increases the encouragement of eating disorders to reach this body satisfaction, which can lead to further issues outside of body image or dissatisfaction. 

The reason I chose this subject to talk about is that I myself am a victim of how social media affected and continues to affect the way I see myself. I did not start using social media until I got into high school and was happy with myself until then. During quarantine, fitness and body image became a huge deal and was something that started running off on me so I started working out more and eating a lot less. This is something that continues to affect me even four years later but is something that I’ve learned to maintain and use it as an encouragement not to go back to how I was. I took the time to gather some opinions of people in my community to see how it affects them or even if it affects them at all. 

Question asked: Does social media affect the way body image is seen? 

“Social media is bad for body imagine because there are a lot of filters that make women look like a Barbie doll, and it’s deceiving to young kids bringing out their insecurities.”

• Sonia Robles, 40

  
  

  

“Social media is bad for body image because of the impossible standards put out for kids starting at a young age because in this day most kids have social media as early as elementary school, and it is bad because kids should just be kids without worrying about unnecessary  problems with their looks”

• Sophia Olaguez, 16

Resources

Burnette, C. B., Kwitowski, M. A., & Mazzeo, S. E. (2017). “I don’t need people to tell me I’m pretty on social media:” A qualitative study of social media and body image in early adolescent girls. Body Image, 23, 114–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2017.09.001 

Vandenbosch, L., Fardouly, J., & Tiggemann, M. (2022). Social media and body image: Recent trends and future directions. Current Opinion in Psychology, 45, 101289-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.12.002