![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/files\/2019\/02\/protein-world-600-300x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Are you<\/em> beach body ready? The societal pressure for women (and men) to look a certain way is detrimental to both one’s physical and mental health. While body positivity movements have led to greater acceptance of different body types over the past few years, it feels as though we have taken two steps back as a result of our addiction to social media. Instagram has become a tool for us to compare ourselves to complete strangers on a daily (or hourly) basis. We are constantly being inundated with photos of fitness transformations and influencers leading seemingly amazing lives in their perfectly toned bodies. While the pressure to have the \u201cperfect body\u201d is not a new phenomenon by any means, the advent of social media has inadvertently encouraged it.<\/p>\n The above advertisement for a weight loss supplement illustrates this problem. The ad portrays an incredibly fit and beautiful woman with the tagline, \u201care you beach body ready?\u201d indicating that one must lose weight and look like this model in order to have a body worthy of being at a beach. Although this ad came out four years ago, the idea that one must attain a particular body type in order to pull off a bathing suit is still prevalent today. For instance, Kayla Itsines\u2019 world-renowned twelve-week “BBG” workout program stands for \u201cBikini Body Guide,\u201d implying that by accomplishing her workout plan, one could obtain an appropriate bikini body. Famous fitness influencers (or \u201cfit-fluencers\u201d) post quotes on their Instagram accounts stating things like, \u201csummer bodies are made in the winter.\u201d As a society we are perpetuating these unrealistic expectations of the way women\u2019s bodies should look, under the notion of promoting self-confidence and body positivity \u2013 it\u2019s toxic.<\/p>\n In my jammed version of this advertisement, I used a child in place of the model. While I was attempting to demonstrate how absurd the \u201cbeach body\u201d mentality is through this juxtaposition, when I see this jammed advertisement I just feel sad. I would never think to judge the body of a young girl, but I also know that I was likely around this child\u2019s age when I began to feel self-conscious and critical about my own body. With social media platforms like Instagram so easily accessible these days, I can only imagine how detrimental this platform for comparison must be to the body images of developing young girls. A study examining the implications of this phenomenon found that comparing one\u2019s appearance with others via social media influenced the level of body dissatisfaction in adolescent girls (Makwana, Lee, Parkin, & Farmer, n.d.). This is incredibly concerning considering the fact that up to 80% of adolescents have social media accounts, with the starting age being twelve-years-old on average (Howard, 2018).<\/p>\n So at what age do we normalize these unrealistic expectations of women\u2019s bodies? When does it become socially acceptable to judge others on the basis of their appearance? Had I selected a teenage girl instead, would this jammed advertisement have appeared less absurd?<\/p>\n As mentioned above, the conversation is changing. Body positivity is on the rise, and while this more accepting mentality may not be enough to overshadow the never-ending comparisons of our virtual selves, perhaps it can positively influence the body images and attitudes of the next generation. The negative backlash that the initial advertisement received in 2015 (prompting the removal of all \u201cbeach body\u201d ads in the U.K.) is also encouraging (Andriako, 2015). Society as a whole has become less accepting of the promotion of a singular ideal body type. However, social media users must retire the endless self-promotion and body shaming under the guise of healthful living and acceptance before any real change can truly be enacted.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n References:<\/p>\n Andriakos, J. (2015, April 30). Controversial ‘Beach Body’ Ads Will Be Removed in the UK. Retrieved from https:\/\/people.com\/bodies\/controversial-beach-body-ads-will-be-removed-in-the-uk\/<\/p>\n Howard, J. (2018, June 22). What’s the age when kids start social media? Retrieved from https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/06\/22\/health\/social-media-for-kids-parent-curve\/index.html<\/p>\n Makwana, B., Lee, Y., Parkin, S., & Farmer, L. (n.d.). Selfie-Esteem: The Relationship Between Body Dissatisfaction and Social Media in Adolescent and Young Women. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.in-mind.org\/article\/selfie-esteem-the-relationship-between-body-dissatisfaction-and-social-media-in-adolescent<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.aliexpress.com\/item\/HIHEART-2015-Brand-Summer-Girls-Swimwear-Cute-Heart-Print-Baby-Kids-Swimsuit-Halter-Little-Girl-Bikinis\/32315103489.html<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are you beach body ready? The societal pressure for women (and men) to look a certain way is detrimental to both one’s physical and mental health. While body positivity movements have led to greater acceptance of different body types over the past few years, it feels as though we have taken two steps back as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/11"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/baidagg\/files\/2019\/02\/Screen-Shot-2019-02-14-at-10.14.10-PM-300x300.png\")
<\/p>\n