Raise your hand if you've ever said or done any of the following things:
· Scrolled through Facebook or Instagram and felt inadequate about your body shape or size
· Pinched your stomach for fat
· Compared yourself to someone else
· Looked for cellulite somewhere on your body
· Started a diet
· Been envious of your thinner family members or friends
· Have followed numerous online health/beauty/fitness blogs for inspiration only to then feel worthless
If you said yes to any of the above, fear not: you are not alone. Almost all of us have looked in the mirror at one point in time, seen something we don’t like, and instantly started thinking negatively about our bodies and the steps we can take to change it. Negative body image issues surrounding weight and beauty isn’t something new – women who lived as early as the 1800’s wore painful corsets to accentuate their breasts, hips and buttocks in order to fulfill a specific ideal of beauty. But why over the last decade has this issue become increasingly common?
Perhaps the invention of the internet?
On average Australians are currently spending over 18 hours a day online. At first glance that may seem a little unrealistic and almost excessive – that’s one in every five minutes a day spent staring into the soft glow of digital screen browsing the internet or scrolling through social media – but as a nation we are constantly plugged in.
Currently, 13 million Australians are active on Facebook each month and unsurprisingly we’re some of the heaviest users in the world.
According to a consumer study report conducted by Nielsen in January, Australians check Facebook up to 14 times a day and spend on average 1.7 hours posting, searching and engaging in social media content.
Tumblr and Instagram; both online micro-blogging platforms which allow users to post and share images and or videos, also share some of the highest social media user rates within Australia - five million users per month being active on Instagram and four million a month on Tumblr.
So, all this time spent online must be harmless enough right?
Wrong.
In this new era of merciless body shaming and unrealistic beauty ideals people are constantly reminded what society deems beautiful and what is not.
Images of paper thin models, photo-shopped celebrities with smooth skin and seemingly flawless socialites are shared constantly on social media and are ultimately unavoidable. A bright, auto-enhanced image of a bikini clad model with zero percent body fat is guaranteed to be lurking behind every click, swipe or scroll. Advertisement companies have increased their presence on social media, realising its overwhelming potential and ability to reach a wider target demographic and are flooding our feeds with photo shopped propaganda. Celebrities themselves through their own social media accounts are reinforcing this by sharing extra images from photo shoots or red carpet events. *Cue every single Kardashian*. Finally, personal user accounts repost this as inspiration with tips and tricks on how to achieve or imitate such extreme beauty looks.
This constant and overwhelming exposure to images which showcase bodies that have been air-brushed and re-touched without the "burden" of body fat or wrinkles is distorting a healthy body image for one reason - it's not real. It seems as our obsession with appearance grows, so does our dissatisfaction with our own physical imperfections. Be it our less than perfect complexions, asymmetrical features, soft stomachs or small breasts its likely we're looking to celebrities as the example of desired physical perfection - whether it's achievable or not.
Young people everywhere want full, plump lips like Kylie Jenner, a tiny waist with a thick behind like Kim Kardashian but thighs that don’t touch like Cara Delevingne, a frame a small as Ariana Grande and breasts as big as Nikki Minaj.
This impossible and improbable media-driven body image realistically only fits a small percentage of the population but yet, it is the criteria by which many measure themselves.
As a result, online beauty challenges have become the forefront of the internet over the past 3 years - weight being the main topic of comparison.
Take a look at the most influential body standards to sweep our news feeds:
The Thigh Gap
A thigh gap, the space between the inner thighs of women which can be seen when she is standing upright with her knees touching, has become an aspect of physical attractiveness within today's society - women using it as a measurement of self-worth and desirability in the eyes of the opposite sex. Achieving a thigh gap is seemingly difficult for many women and has led to numerous cases of extreme dieting or even surgery. The thigh gap craze has been criticized as physically unnatural and the most unachievable body fixation of all time.
The phenomenon of the thigh gap first swept the nation after receiving widespread news coverage in December 2012 after the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show featured numerous models with noticeably thin thighs. As a result hundreds of blogs and images of thigh gaps were published as part of 'thinspiration blogs’ across Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr, dedicated to helping women achieve the same look.
The Bikini Bridge
This is said to occur when a women wearing a bikini, lies on her back and her pelvis (hip bones) protrude in such a way that the waistband of her bikini bottoms lifts up from her lower abdomen.
This creates the space infamously known as a 'bikini bridge.' This completely unnecessary fat-shaming sensation started trending early 2014 and saw thousands of images posted and being shared across Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #bikinibridge.
The Collarbone Envy Challenge
The theory behind this challenge noted that the thinner you were; the more pronounced your collarbone was. If you are slim, your collarbone would stick out – if you were overweight or fat, your collarbone would be hidden.
To prove this, women balanced stacks of small coins in the groove of their collarbones and posted photos of their achievement to social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The more coins you could fit, the thinner you were.
One of the most popular images saw famous Chinese actress Lv Jiarong balance 80 coins on her two collarbones.
Thighbrows
Thigh brows, the flesh that rolls over the top of your thigh – signifying a large booty – when you bend forward, sit or kneel, is the most recent body shaming trend of 2015. Well known celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Kendall and Kylie Jenner are said to have a monopoly on this, flaunting their 'thigh brows' for months and ultimately beginning the latest trend.
As expected the internet blew up in September with pages dedicated to posting images of women bending and kneeling in certain positions to show off their ‘thighbrows.’ The hashtag #thighbrows quickly started trending on Instagram and girls began setting ‘fitness goals’ in order to achieve said thighbrow.
Unbelievable right?
From a young age, women are taught that their craving for self-acceptance can be satisfied if she looks like the woman society has placed on a pedestal. If she can meet those unrealistic body expectations she is beautiful enough, thin enough and therefore worthy enough. This extreme pressure to look a certain way is dangerously influential on today's youth and can lead to the development of serious mental health issues such as body dysmorphia, anorexia nervosa, bulimia and binge eating.
Australian and New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders (ANZAED), representative Courtney Hamlin, says negative body image and body dissatisfaction are serious mental health issues within Australia.
"These body issues, where people have low self-esteem, no self-worth, and just feel bad about themselves in general, can then lead to depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
"The most common eating disorder that can develop from negative body image is Anorexia Nervosa where people will go to extreme measures to change their appearance by significant weight loss, starvation, excessive exercise, vomiting and other dangerous methods.
"Other eating disorders include Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder where people will starve themselves, excessively exercise, purge, binge eat and use other extreme methods such as laxatives, drugs, alcohol etc to lose weight or change their appearance," she says.
Hamlin explained that there are extremely negative effects to current media and its presentation of 'thin ideal'; where every detail on the body is photo shopped and manipulated to look ‘perfect’.
"What this creates is an idea of what we should look like when in fact it isn’t even real.
"Young people are growing up with twisted ideas around what is ‘normal’ and are then expected to look a certain way to be accepted in society. Social media is a dangerous avenue for misinterpreting and misleading information and images, and the prevalence in today’s society means that the majority of the youth population are accessing these images.
"Young people look up to the women or men advertised through the media, and instead of sending positive images about our bodies, the media creates an opportunity for young people to criticize and analyse their own bodies and begin to think that they need to change their appearance to be ‘normal’ or to be beautiful.
"In saying that, images on social media are usually not the sole cause of these mental health issues as there are often many other factors involved, but negative body image is definitely a result of these images and can cause someone to become emotionally unstable that they are at risk of many mental health problems," she says.
Currently, eating disorders are now estimated to affect approximately 9% of the Australian population.
So, what is being done by the media to combat it?
Miraculously, social media giant Instagram have blocked the hashtag #thighgaps from its site – meaning that users who search for images with the tag will initially be restricted from seeing them and instead faced with a warning message and link that takes users to nationaleatingdisorders.org. By connecting the thighgap hashtag with eating disorders users are being given a direct warning about the un-healthiness of this trend.
Popular Australian teen magazine Girlfriend is also said to be committed to building media literacy in teens by advising them with 'self-respect reality checks' on pages with images that have been retouched.
Two of Girlfriends digital-image guidelines state that under no circumstance will they alter someone’s body shape (for example, lengthen legs or change body size) – even if a celebrity requests it and if they receive an image that has already been retouched, they promise to advise readers of this by placing a disclaimer next to said image.
In addition ‘real life’ (also known as ‘plus size’) models and mannequins are on the rise, Target Australia managing director Stuart Machin saying a least two size 16 female mannequins will be rolled out in each store across the country.
"The average customer is a size 14, so it’s baffling that the Australian retail industry still uses a standard size 8 mannequins when we are merchandising product.
“We want to change the way Australian retailers represent women, and we hope that these mannequins will help to start a new conversation in the fashion industry, and trigger some change," he says.
Although small, these changes are all contributing towards promoting a healthier, more realistic body image for Australians everywhere – and in a body image conscious era such as 2015 it could not be more important.
Helpline:
Eating Disorders Association Inc Queensland
Telephone: (07) 3394 3661
Website: www.eda.org.au
Email: admin@eda.org.au
Life Line Australia
Telephone: 13 11 14
