Are you an obsessive weigher?
A recent study found that when girls spend a lot of time on Facebook there is a greater risk of developing an eating disorder, according to University of Haifa in 2011. (USA Today)
For as long as I can remember I have felt and so have many women around me that we are not good enough, especially in our twenty something years. There is always someone who is prettier, more career focused, slimmer or earns more money. At nearly thirty women generally start to accept that life is like that- you can’t be good at everything and you are just you.
For those who have not yet found peace with themselves, surely we can argue that social media is perpetuating these fears of not meeting up to expectations to some degree? Not only do we have to see skinny role models on the covers of gossip magazines but now they appear on our feeds through shares, so even if we don’t seek it out- they are still there for us to see and make us feel inferior if we don’t have the mental mechanisms to brush them off.
So what’s the answer? Take complete abstinence from social media and avoid the magazine aisle in supermarkets?
For some previous sufferers, this is exactly what they do. Donna, 27, has omitted Facebook and Instagram from her life after being bulimic for 13 years since her body has gone through dental erosion, swollen glands, period loss and hospitalisations. (USA Today)
Online material of a certain nature can push previous suffers into to relapse, so sometimes the only answer is to take vulnerable people away from it completely.
Not only do we have a rise of anorexia and bulimia, there is now ADNOS to be concerned about too. EDNOS so Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified is concerned with overeating orthorexia, an obsession with healthy food rather than bad food, those who don’t fit snugly into the symptoms of anorexia or bulimia and generally people that are not recognised as being put under the banner of a specific eating disorder.
The worry is that when forums and sites are set up to support people with these disorders sometimes readers can take a seemingly positive post the wrong way. Even pictures of people encouraging a ‘new fit you’- can also be taken out of context as the women in the pictures may have gone to the extreme to look such a way. The most blatant ones, are never going to help such as ‘pretty girls don't eat’, ‘skip dinner, be thinner’. These become engrained in women’s minds and even those who have the capacity to deflect are still left with doubts.
There are unfortunately websites out there that champion bulimia and anorexia and social media are somewhat responsible for letting this information spread across the globe. Just like a slimming class will support healthier weight loss for people who need to drop a few pounds- these do the same but take it to the excess, convincing the readers that this is a choice, but it’s not it’s a disease, according to the California’s Stanford University (Cosmopolitan), a mental illness.
Ii’s understandable that is it incredibly difficult to monitor all of the pictures that go up on social media, however Instagram have since banned terms like ‘thinspiration’ and ‘thinspo’ in a bid to reduce this kind of encouragement, however people are always finding a new play on words that have not yet been policed.
Like it or not, these sites do exist and will continue to crop up, it’s changing the perception of the women who they are targeted at that really matters. My Personal Best for instance, offer boards, live chats, video podcasts and social media pages for photographs of people who have suffered from an eating disorder. An excellent name considering the sorts of women will type this into Google search.
NEDA has also launched Proud2BMe that encourages younger adults or gain a healthy attitude towards their body image. There is help out there- but they are still greatly outnumbered by sites that endorse eating disorders.
Do any or all media outlets promote the perfect body image? Perhaps they all do to some extent. Followers of celebrities who go on specific diet regimes might be swayed to follow in their footsteps because it worked for their idol.
I am personally signed up to a diet Facebook page, who will remain unnamed, and people on there post pictures all the time of themselves in their loose clothes and their before and after shots. Is this encouraging or does it put pressure on women to lose weight faster with unsafe methods to keep up with the success stories?
Social media is a very visual place, it’s not so much about the writing anymore, it’s about the pictures.
One movement this summer has been the ‘fatkini’ which shows voluptuous women on the beach enjoying the weather and the swim. Why do you have to look like a cover girl to wear skimpy swimming attire? They say- you don’t!
One could argue that social media is like an edited reality show- everyone is altering their daily lives to look more appealing, only posting when they get a new job, they pass an exam or something good happens in the their lives for the majority of their posts. Negative elements of their lives are left out or glossed over because it makes for bad press and criticism.
Have you done better than your school mates? Just check out their ‘about’ section on Facebook and their pictures and you can make up your mind. Are you are still the girl that carries extra weight? You did in school, were bullied for it and are dreading your school reunion? Does something like this situation spur on destructive ways to lose weight to show people you now have control over your body?
Everyone in the media industry has a responsibility to promote positive body image or women in their teens and twenties will remain trapped in the ‘insecure years’ of their lives forever, never reaching the ‘I don’t give a damn stage’ when 30 knocks on the door.
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