Social Media's Negative Effects on Body Image Essay Sample

Imagine a world where everyone was free of insecurity, everyone loved themselves for who they are. Body image is the subjective picture or mental image of one's own body. Body image can be a positive or negative thought both of which stem from similar sources. Negative body image is proven to be seen more often throughout the past few years. Social media is a very common platform for most teenagers, with advertisements, influencers, and people who are praised for their beauty. These are different types of ways that social media can give teenagers the reassurance or push to reach the “societal expectations” (Heltic, 2018). Another big influence is the people you surround yourself with. For instance, friends and peers can lead towards a specific idea, although not directly saying a thought but implying a message. Lastly, adults grew up in a different lifestyle, meaning they had a different form of communication that is harder to send negative messages. Adults are important role models for teenagers today, making their opinion leave a more significant impact on a teenager's thoughts. Social media, friends, and adults can impact how a teenage girl views her body, through self-esteem, eating disorders, and mental mindset.

Social Media is one of the most popular forms of communicating, but what is it? Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks (Wikipedia). These numbers are huge – there are 7.7 billion people in the world, with at least 3.5 billion of us online. This means social media platforms are used by one in three people in the world, and more than two-thirds of all internet users (Ortiz-Ospina, 2020). Women use social media for personal purposes while men use social media more for business purposes. Women use social media for many reasons, health, trends, clothes, and more. Although there are positive sides to social media there are many negative effects as well. One effect of social media is the impact it leaves on one's self-esteem, an example of this would be seeing a post that got more likes than you but it's the same content, or seeing how many likes and comments you get on a post. This may not be the case for all women but most care about the number of likes or comments they are given in their posts. 

Social Media isn’t just a fun thing to do, in some cases, it is a way to get advertisements, make money, spread awareness, and more. Something that follows this is many health advertisements are displayed through social media, this can be a new workout trend, a new recipe, weight loss tips, and recovery videos as well. The internet is a prime spot where people, especially young teenage girls, are getting a glimpse at what society expects to see, and the changes in society’s opinion. Many influencers have what's defined as “the perfect body” so those who do not have that body style feel obligated to reach that standard no matter the outcome. When a person tries to change the way their body looks in a very short amount of time, their mindset shifts and they start to develop what's called body dissatisfaction (NEDC). Body dissatisfaction not only brings negative body image into your thoughts but some develop eating disorders. 

Eating disorders are more common than ever, The Jed foundation quotes, “National surveys estimate that in the US, 20 million women and 10 million men will develop an eating disorder at some point in their lives. And according to the National Institute of Mental Health, eating disorders are most common in teens or young adults — specifically young women.” When a person develops an eating disorder no one notices because they do it in shame and secrecy (The Jed Foundation). When a person has an eating disorder it becomes difficult to tell friends and adults. In most cases, friends and family are a support system, but sometimes they can be a reason as to what caused your eating disorder. 

There can be a variety of situations that friends can influence an eating disorder, with eating disorders being common a friend may have one and it is working for them, without them understanding the risk they encourage you to do the same. Maybe you really want the body your friend has so you do the exact same thing like her to try and reach it, but it doesn’t work so you do what everyone else does. Although friends can be the main influence, many adult figures in someone's life can leave words that will change how someone views themselves. One of the main phrases we hear from adults are “times have changed since I was a kid”, society's standards have grown and become more strict, what was unhealthy for them when they were in high school is now glorified for us, and what is dangerous for us is being overly dramatic for them. “It is important to highlight that parents do not cause eating disorders in their children and they cannot necessarily prevent them. However, parents can try to help children develop resilience and self-acceptance by teaching children to be proud of who they are.” (Bahr, 2020).

Body image is shaped around your mental mindset. When women have a negative mindset or negative body image it prevents them from doing activities that will benefit them, “Feeling self-conscious or uncomfortable with appearance or body size or shape can lead to women avoiding physical activity. This could be because they feel that being active or engaging in particular activities exposes their body to the public eye.” (Better Health). The one complicated thing about mindset is that it takes time for a person to change that mentality. Most of these mentalities develop over years of astigmatisms that encourage women to change who they are. The mental mentality is the core that stems from everything you see about yourself, many people have to change a lot of what they do to reach the goal that they want; weight, confidence, health, and so on. Someone wanting to bring change upon their lifestyle is most commonly seen as forced, and not wanted but needed. 

In the real world, it is more complicated than just imagining self-love and surrounding yourself with judgment-free peers. Body image is a part of everyone, friends, family, peers, adult figures, it's also seen everywhere, on social media, in advertisements, and in everything you do. Society brings many expectations among teenagers and what they are supposed to wear, look, and do. As a society we need to change the concept of a perfect body, we judge people on how they look without understanding that the concept is not obtainable. Body image is often seen as a bad thing when in reality it's a mindset that should be viewed as positive.