We live in a society where young girls are under a misconception and fallacious belief that, with a view to improve their self-worth or self-image, or to feel more confident, they should get a certain form of figure (which they idealize, and differ from female to female).
Girls think that their body defines their self-worth. Girls are virtually terrified to realize weight, and are always bombarded with quick weight reduction solutions & size-zero figures, on the social media.
The media tries to set unattainable and absolutely unrealistic standards of beauty and attractiveness, which makes the females extremely insecure about their bodies and physical appearance.
This has taken a heavy emotional and mental toll on these women. They are feeling inadequate and intensely low in self-esteem. They are stuck in a vicious cycle of body-hatred and unrealistic expectations.
Body image is a mixture of thoughts and feelings that you could have about your personal body. You can have a negative or positive body image. Simply, one can feel positive or negative about their body, or generally a mixture of each.
When an individual is in a position to just accept, appreciate and respect their body, it means he has a positive body image. A positive body image may be very necessary for a person, and is related to higher self-esteem, self-acceptance, and healthy behaviors.
When an individual has constant negative thoughts & feelings about their body, it’s what we call as Body Dissatisfaction. There is a disconnect between what an individual think they need to appear to be and what they really appear to be. This doesn’t mean, that if you happen to are obese, then it is best to accept it. This is more to do with unnatural and extreme when it comes to the sort of body you idealize.
For e.g. a pressure to catch up and meet up with a certain ideal appearance. And it’s this body dissatisfaction which drive people to have interaction in unhealthy and extreme behaviors like starvation diets, resulting in disordered eating (anorexia, bulimia nervosa), multiple dietary deficiencies, and long-term medical complications:
- Excessive fasting.
- Obsession with counting calories to the last decimal.
- Eating every thing by weighing to the last gram.
- Going extreme in exercise without adequate recovery.
- Consuming extreme supplements like fat burners and anabolic steroids.
- Giving more value to your appearance than your self-worth, pondering that others judge you on the premise of your looks
- Excessively checking yourself within the mirror, be it your muscles, your skin or your appearance, a kind of Body Dysmorphic Disorder, where an individual sees an especially distorted view of what they really appear to be, they usually spend hours attempting to conceal/hide their flaws.
- Checking your weight multiple times, a day on the weighing machine, and your mood is set on whether the size shows a rise or decrease.
- Assuming something is fallacious if you happen to can’t fit into some ‘standard size’ of clothing.
- Spending tons of time in your clothing, hair, make-up and appearance.
- Thinking and talking negative about everyone who’re of upper weight.
- Having an opinion on everyone based on their appearance, without knowing anything concerning the person as such.
- Avoiding social gatherings from the fear that folks may judge them on basis of their looks or physique.
Though body dissatisfaction can occur in all age groups, but:
- Women are far more prone to experience it.
- People with higher weight are at an increased risk too, due to society’s negative view towards weight.
- High achievers, and folks with perfectionistic tendencies, are also at greater risk, as they’re always comparing themselves with others.
BODY IMAGE & THE SOCIAL MEDIA
Media, and these days the social media has been a number one contributor to body dissatisfaction. Images with every possible filter, and extreme editing, create an unrealistic picture within the minds of individuals. People viewing such content are always comparing themselves to those images and feeling dissatisfied and anxious.
The media have often recommend an ordinary of beauty that is usually unattainable through videos, images, articles and advertisements. These beauty standards goal the feminine population, pushing upon them and image that society has passed off as ideal. This unattainable beauty standard has oft result in individuals practicing unhealthy habits. Even though a overwhelming majority of those standards are created via applications corresponding to Photoshop and does not likely exist, these images are recommend as if they’re real.
Remember, one thing, there’s nothing called as ideal weight, size, shape or appearance. These are changing fashion trends. You could have a stark difference within the body sort of actors and actresses from the 60s, 70s & 80s, if you happen to compare them with the present trend of sharp six packs within the male actors, and being skinny within the actresses.
Women specifically, have been portrayed as their individual parts on the social media, than as an entire being. It’s the 3Bs which they’re more often related to – Boobs, Belly & Butt. Bigger or smaller boobs, flatter belly and curvy butts. Isn’t this mostly the story on virtually every other Insta account.
Men, then again are obsessive about every a part of the feminine body, however the butt and boobs are what they’re most interested in, mostly attributable to the sexual associations with these parts. And the media is the one to fuel the hearth and shift from one part to a different.
There was a time when the boobs were trending and were the middle of attraction, then got here the flat belly, and nowadays, it’s the butt. That’s the rationale the social media today, is bombarded by pictures & videos of ladies’ big butts. Though Boobs rank a detailed second.
An Indian study of 1200 college girls found that, body image dissatisfaction was there amongst 77.6% of the ladies. It was found that aspects corresponding to higher BMI, sociocultural pressure to be thin and depression were all significantly related to body image dissatisfaction. The mostly followed weight control behaviours were eating small meals and skipping meals. Improving the looks and body shape were the important reasons for weight control behaviours.
The study also showed that 23% of the underweight people were satisfied with their BMI, and amongst those that were dissatisfied 7.4% wanted to cut back their weight further. Similarly, 71% of the conventional BMI category was dissatisfied with their appearance of which 58.3% wanted to cut back their weight. This clearly shows the tendency for liking toward thin body shapes.
Body image dissatisfaction is seen more amongst higher socioeconomic status. Urban adolescents have more body image dissatisfaction in comparison with rural.
Another study found that, appearance-related social media use can be positively and significantly related to body dissatisfaction in girls and boys. Additionally, thin- and muscular-ideal internalisation were positively and significantly correlated with body dissatisfaction in girls and boys. As adolescents are actually faced with the unhealthy standard of the ‘strong’ and ‘skinny’ paradox on social media, it’s unsurprising that those that endorse such ideals also experience body dissatisfaction.
A studyinvestigated the effect on women’s body image of exposure to ‘Instagram vs reality’ images, an emerging contemporary social media trend. As predicted, it was found that exposure to paired ideal-real images, in addition to to real images, resulted in lower body dissatisfaction than did viewing idealized Instagram images.
Not that each one images create a negative body image. A study found that “”.
Among female college studentstwo principal examples of beauty ideals coexist: the athletic-ideal and thin-ideal. The internalization of the athletic-ideal predicts compulsive exercise. And media is the first source promoting such ideals.
A study found that, “”
A studyexamined whether trait physical appearance perfectionism moderates young women’s body image following upwards appearance comparison to idealized body images on social media. From the study of 142 undergraduate females, it was seen:
- Comparison to idealized bodies on Instagram resulted in lowered confidence.
- Comparison to idealized bodies on Instagram resulted in increased body dissatisfaction
- Physical appearance perfectionism predicted negative body image after body comparison.
Another studyinvestigated the relationships between healthy women’s estimates of their very own body size, their body dissatisfaction, and the way they subjectively judge the transition from normal to obese in other women’s bodies (the “normal/obese” boundary). They found that:
When the participants, compared other women to an internalized Western “thin ideal,” whose size reflects the observer’s own body dissatisfaction. As dissatisfaction increases, so the scale of their “thin ideal” reduces, predicting an inverse relationship between the “normal/obese” boundary and participants’ body dissatisfaction. Alternatively, participants judge the scale of other women relative to the body size they consider they’ve.
YOUR BODY DOESN’T DEFINE YOU
- Start accepting that nature/God created people in all shapes & sizes. It’s not a mobile factory, where all phones might be copy of one another.
Accept your genes. You are who you might be. Someone asked me that I would like to appear to be Hrithik Roshan. I simply said, “”. Your genetics play a serious role in majority of your physical traits. There are many elements of your body, you’ll be able to’t change. And that’s why you could have to just accept them. Which is probably the most difficult part.
No two individuals are the identical. Stop comparing yourself with the images within the media. Of course, you’ll be able to change the form of your body, by getting fit and powerful, but you’ll be able to’t change the colour of your skin, or the way in which you look.
2. Remember, society’s beauty standards keep changing with time, and have modified multiple times in last 50 years. Actresses who were considered full-bodied and exquisite back within the 60s, 70s & 80s, & 90s like Madhubala, Sadhna, Waheeda Rehman, Hema Malini, Sridevi, Meena Kumari, Nargis, Vyjayanthimala, Mumtaz, Parveen Babi, Rekha, Juhi Chawla, Madhuri Dixit etc. might be considered obese by todays’ standards.
Unfortunately, anorexically thin, wasted away actresses, affected by eating disorders, are those setting the standards of beauty today. Thanks to amazingly talented actresses like Tabu, Huma Qureshi, Vidya Balan; South Indian actresses like Nayanthara, Anushka.
3. Aim must be to get fit & strong, not thin and weak, as is being propagated. This one aspect, if you happen to understand properly, you’ll literally change the way in which you think that of fitness and your personal self.
Aim for overall health and wellbeing. If you might be obese or obese, the rationale so that you can lose excess fat, is to be healthy first. Getting skinny has nothing to do with health and even looks. It’s only a case of negative body image, attributable to the societal trends.
Being obese can result in number of health issues, which puts an incredible mental and financial burden on the person, their family and country as an entire. That’s why everyone must be aiming to stay fit and healthy.
Remember, if higher fat percentage can result in health issues, so can extremely low-fat percentage, in each men and ladies.
4. Have a robust goal. Most of the fake influencers you see on the social media, have just one goal, to in some way gain fame, by hook or crook. They spend their entire time & energy, on creating controversies and doing nonsensical things on social media.
The picture above, is of the amazing women space scientists of India, who led the Indian mission to Mars. Do you discover anyone with size zero figure, doing non-sensical stuff on social media? They probably won’t even know, how one can operate Instagram.
Now seek for such achievers in any field be it doctors, engineers, scientists, designers, athletes, soldiers, civil services officers, architects etc. and what you will see common is a crystal-clear goal, a laser sharp focus, and back-breaking effort to realize it. Imagine the plight of our country if such women start specializing in size zero figure as an alternative of their goals.
5. If someone can’t accept the way in which you might be, then they don’t deserve you. You are beautiful the way in which you might be. If you might be obese or underweight, a one who truly cares for you, will love you in all of your sizes and styles, not whenever you get fit.
