Body Image is not deeply affected by social media

Social media has been seen as these horrifying apps that the most recent generation has grown up with. All due to a lot of mental health struggles, cyberbullying, eating disorders, and body image dissatisfaction. All of these cases could have been true in the past, but in the most recent years, it has been shown to have a more positive impact. With more fitness influencers coming up and talking about their personal experience growing in their bodies and changing, showing expectations vs reality, and simply talking about their bodies, fitness journeys, comparison struggles, and just being raw to be more relatable to everyone else. Even with that though a lot of people blame social media being the root of the problem for adolescents when in reality it is the feed they have themselves. Any social media on any basis only shows on your feed what is frequently liked by you or what you follow. If the impact of social media is so bad why not just change the algorithm? With that being said social media’s positive influences have changed a lot of people’s physical and mental health combined.

Social media can have a bad influence on people. In the end, it all depends on the consumer and their algorithm. Social media has a wide spread of categories to show and yet it only shows the consumer what they most like and anything relatable to that. This implies that whoever is necessarily badly affected by social media and their body image is because that is what they are feeding into their brain all day long. To add social media is not the problem but the consumer themselves because the person posting is not trying to make you feel worse about yourself but somehow you do because they look a certain way you do not. 

Health and fitness influencers all over tend to show the real truth about bodies. Showing different people they have trained with the start and the result, showing that consistency is the key to change. For example, trainer Mikeymikebw always posts his clients after some time of being with him to show the muscle definition change with his training or meal plans. Showing the transformations and showing people the difference influences people to want to be better for themselves, not envy and feel like they are not enough. After speaking to Mikey about his clients and the social media posting he said, “The best thing I do is post my client’s spotlights because they draw in more attention for people to want to change and clients as well for myself to help people change,” As stated before this is influencing people to want to change, giving them a optimistic mindset for their future about their body and health. In another conversation, he stated, “Nobody comes to this on their own they start by being influenced mainly by social media.” Whether it is a bad or good influence it still creates a positive change in the end with people changing their lifestyles and mindsets. 

Social media has one of the biggest roles in body positivity movements. The study, “Bopo: Enhancing body image through body positive social media- evidence to date and research directions” talks about these movements and characteristics. Also finding ways that social media content can be beneficial for body image and lower comparison. All of this occurs because most of the body positivity posts also branch out to “a wide range of body sizes, shapes, and appearances and include messages about the importance of broadly conceptualizing beauty engaging in body acceptance and appreciation”, stated in the article. This is more than enough to show how much body positivity movements have a great impact on people on social media to stop constantly comparing themselves to bodies that are nothing like theirs. 

The whole point of the content on social media is to make everyone feel included not for you to pick the worst features you think to have and compare them to others. As the study states, “ body positive content aims to disrupt the monopoly of idealized media on the visual landscape, and to encourage individuals to adopt a positive stance towards their body and appearance.” All of this is done by having more inclusiveness and less oppressive systems. Social media is not going away any time soon, we have to learn to embrace it in the most positive outlook possible because it is meant to be used in that way. Perceiving it negative way with constant comparison of bodies only makes it look that way more and more causing the environment to be negative. 

Another study, “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” talks about how these girls embrace the differences in bodies rather than compare themselves and beat themselves up for it. From 7th to 8th graders it was shown that even though their social media use was high the influence that social media had on them was minimal and they appreciated the differences. This could be due to, “these characteristics were nurtured by positive parental influence and a supportive school environment.” as the study stated, causing them to not want to look for a way to be better or look better, but rather appreciate themselves and everyone else around them because they do not need that attention from anywhere else. When the environment all around is better it prevents body dissatisfaction because the young adults are already satisfied. Therefore they see everything in a positive light no matter what the post is. 

Overall the most straightforward answer to give anyone who claims to suffer from body image from body dysmorphia would be to just get off social media and live without it, be happy on your own. That simply would not happen in today day. Learning to embrace social media in the positive way that it is meant to be looked at with influencers showing the reality of bodies and having better environments showing people to perceive things differently is the way to handle it. There is no such thing as negativity on social media it all depends on how it is perceived. 

References:

Rodgers, R. F., Wertheim, E. H., Paxton, S. J., Tylka, T. L., & Harriger, J. A. (2022). Bopo: Enhancing body image through body positive social media- evidence to date and research directions. Body Image, 41, 367–374. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2022.03.008 

Talked to Mikeymikebw in person for 45 minutes about the topic.

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