In today’s hyper-connected world, social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat dominate how we communicate and view ourselves and others. Social media can provide creative outlets, and connections and promote expression and creativity but they also come with significant downsides, especially when it comes to body image standards. Social media can create a toxic environment where individuals, specifically young adults, feel pressured to conform to definitions of beauty standards. The most harmful effect of social media is the way it circulates body types and shapes as trends that must be achieved, often glorifying thinness as beauty and pushing predominantly white beauty standards. This has real consequences for users of social media: lowered self-esteem, disordered eating habits, and a growing need to compare.
More often than not, the body image trends on social media showcase an image of a thin white woman, with an hourglass shape, clear skin and effortless beauty. This image is so ingrained in social media and society that it has become the default for what is beautiful. These body types tend to be prioritized by algorithms which leads to a lack of representation of diverse body types and skin tones. When this message is given over and over again to young people, it becomes difficult to escape feeling less than if you don’t have the “desirable” body type. This push of whiteness and thinness as beautiful has long-term consequences for users, specifically young users of social media who are developing their self-worth and identity. By pushing these standards on social media users, these messages become internalized and often people begin to believe that their worth is directly tied to their appearance, and how closely they resemble the “ideal’ body type.
However, there have been movements to counteract these harmful messages, body positivity and body neutrality movements have begun to take shape and appear more frequently in media. Unfortunately, these efforts are still often drowned out by the voices and people who continue to promote harmful and outdated beauty ideals. The rise in popularity of influencers has also added a new layer to the problem. Many influencers and creators build their platforms based on aesthetics and unique content to generate views. While some influencers utilize their platforms to spread messages of body positivity, others continue to showcase content that is heavily filtered, or participate in harmful trends.
Trend cycles have a rapid pace on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Body types are often treated like fashion statements, as new body types become the “it” look over time. Body types are not trends. A person’s body can’t change as rapidly as one changes clothes, and while not everyone intends to push this message across, it can come from common popular trends.
One popular trend on TikTok that demonstrates this cycle is the “What I Eat in a Day” videos. Upon first glance, the content seems harmless and can even be helpful as creators showcase meals, recipes, and food routines and can help inspire healthier habits. However, these videos can become problematic fast. Some creators use the trend to showcase low-calorie eating or restrictive eating and display these habits as normal. This content can reinforce harmful eating and body image habits and can contribute to harmful conditions such as eating disorders in users. Even when there are no harm intended, trends like these turn everyday eating patterns into something that must be performative and on-trend. This only perpetuates a culture of guilt, comparison, and unrealistic pressure to conform to beauty standards.
Social media is interactive and immediate. Every swipe, scroll, or like exposes users to new content and it doesn’t just come from celebrities or influencers. It can come from friends, classmates, family members, and peers which can make content feel even more personal and pressuring. With constant access to what people are eating, and wearing, what they weigh, how their skin looks, how they’re working out, the ability to compare yourself to anyone anywhere makes it quite difficult to not fall into the trap. People often compare themselves to content and images, even though up to 80% of images on social media are digitally altered.
The amount of edited and posed content can be a harmful situation for people as what they are comparing themselves to, may not be real to begin with. Of the twenty students who took the Ohio University survey, half said that they often feel pressured to change their bodies because of societal standards. The results from the survey also display that 63% of the people who took the survey feel pressured to follow specific fashion trends to feel accepted. This pressure to change based on what society says is incredibly dangerous for young adults. Patterns of social media negatively impacting body image issues are not just common on Ohio University’s campus, but rather a widespread issue that needs to be addressed immediately.
The solution lies in education and awareness. Social media needs to be discussed more frequently with young adults and young users. They need to be taught how to best use social media so it does not have harmful effects on their self-esteem and body image. For pre-existing users, one simple change on social media can be unfollowing content creators who do not promote authenticity. This can help to promote creators who are authentic and share healthy habits, which will make a big difference for other users too. It’s about shifting the culture. We need to move away from outdated body standards that act as a one-size-fits-all expectation. Social media has the power to be used for good but to do so users and creators alike need to make conscious efforts to promote and interact with content that is authentic and does not play into harmful views of body image and self-worth. Real genuine beauty goes beyond what is seen online-- that is only a small piece of the story.
An article for JOUR 4130 Gender, Race, and Class with Dr. Janice Collins.