Is Social Media Giving Teens a Negative Body Image?

Is Social Media Giving Your Teen a Negative Body Image?

Not too long ago, girls might have stressed about being "bikini-ready" every spring when the bathing suit magazines would hit the stands. And boys might have done a few extra pushups after seeing Wolverine's abs. But now, thanks to photo-centric social media like Instagram, Snapchat and other messaging apps, kids are exposed to a constant drumbeat of bikini bodies, six-pack abs, and just-right hair 24/7. And it's not just celebrities pushing idealized images of human perfection. It's your teens' friends posting pictures of themselves and one another for all the world to see and comment on. What's worse, many of these moments are captured seemingly unplanned, increasing kids' anxiety about looking "perfect" -- but effortlessly so -- at all times.

According to Common Sense Media's body-image study, Children, Teens, Media, and Body Image, teens who are active online worry a lot about how they're perceived. In fact, body dissatisfaction appears to be on the rise in the United States. A study by the Keep it Real Campaign found that 80 percent of 10-year-old American girls have been on a diet. Examples of negative teen body image are all over the Web. In YouTube videos, kids ask an Internet audience to tell them if they're pretty or ugly. They rate each other on Instagram. They bare themselves and beg for feedback on formspring.me. They edit their selfies and drink in advice about how to improve their online image.

Why are teens turning to the Internet for body image validation? Well, because they can. In adolescence, self-consciousness and the need for peer-validation are at their height, and the Internet acts as a kind of "super peer," providing a quick route to satisfying both concerns. But no one knows how all this criticism and judgment affect teens' body image. Research on media and body image to date has focused on so-called "traditional" mainstream media -- TV, movies, music, magazines, advertising -- containing unrealistic, idealized, and stereotypical portrayals of body types. But in a world where the feedback is constant, often negative, frequently public, and interactive, it can't be good.

Body image doesn't just happen. It's a complex phenomenon influenced by many factors, including parents, peers, and social contexts. But we know that media messages play a powerful role in shaping gender norms and body satisfaction.

Given that young people today are no longer only passive consumers of media -- they're also creating and sharing peer-to-peer media messages about boys' and girls' appearance – they have the tools of change in their hands. But they need guidance on how to use them. Parents are in a unique position to help their kids counteract negative messages by encouraging them to use media positively, creatively, and responsibly. And above all, to learn to value themselves as complex individuals -- not just another pretty face.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/is-social-media-giving-your-teen-a-negative-body-image


I googled the above after I saw the following on facebook and thought, is this, what young people think looks good nowadays?

There are so many more media saturation places for teens to become obsessed with - then in my youth; we just had those 'YOUNG MISS/Cosomopolition mag' and those images of 'TWIGGY' staring doey-eyed into the camera lens, looking all starving and underfed

Now not only are tweens getting fake photos/enhanced images /body sculptured chopping done and these girls just don't know what a natural body is supposed to look like ...all up loaded by the thousands on their phones/Ipads.
And parents are 'GIFTING' them breast enlargements for there 'SWEET SIXTEEN' birthdays too ---or some other plastic surgeries done

it gives them an overinflated view of their own self importance.

eddie wrote:Is Social Media Giving Your Teen a Negative Body Image?

Not too long ago, girls might have stressed about being "bikini-ready" every spring when the bathing suit magazines would hit the stands. And boys might have done a few extra pushups after seeing Wolverine's abs. But now, thanks to photo-centric social media like Instagram, Snapchat and other messaging apps, kids are exposed to a constant drumbeat of bikini bodies, six-pack abs, and just-right hair 24/7. And it's not just celebrities pushing idealized images of human perfection. It's your teens' friends posting pictures of themselves and one another for all the world to see and comment on. What's worse, many of these moments are captured seemingly unplanned, increasing kids' anxiety about looking "perfect" -- but effortlessly so -- at all times.

According to Common Sense Media's body-image study, Children, Teens, Media, and Body Image, teens who are active online worry a lot about how they're perceived. In fact, body dissatisfaction appears to be on the rise in the United States. A study by the Keep it Real Campaign found that 80 percent of 10-year-old American girls have been on a diet. Examples of negative teen body image are all over the Web. In YouTube videos, kids ask an Internet audience to tell them if they're pretty or ugly. They rate each other on Instagram. They bare themselves and beg for feedback on formspring.me. They edit their selfies and drink in advice about how to improve their online image.

Why are teens turning to the Internet for body image validation? Well, because they can. In adolescence, self-consciousness and the need for peer-validation are at their height, and the Internet acts as a kind of "super peer," providing a quick route to satisfying both concerns. But no one knows how all this criticism and judgment affect teens' body image. Research on media and body image to date has focused on so-called "traditional" mainstream media -- TV, movies, music, magazines, advertising -- containing unrealistic, idealized, and stereotypical portrayals of body types. But in a world where the feedback is constant, often negative, frequently public, and interactive, it can't be good.

Body image doesn't just happen. It's a complex phenomenon influenced by many factors, including parents, peers, and social contexts. But we know that media messages play a powerful role in shaping gender norms and body satisfaction.

Given that young people today are no longer only passive consumers of media -- they're also creating and sharing peer-to-peer media messages about boys' and girls' appearance – they have the tools of change in their hands. But they need guidance on how to use them. Parents are in a unique position to help their kids counteract negative messages by encouraging them to use media positively, creatively, and responsibly. And above all, to learn to value themselves as complex individuals -- not just another pretty face.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/is-social-media-giving-your-teen-a-negative-body-image


I googled the above after I saw the following on facebook and thought, is this, what young people think looks good nowadays?

sorry the bint in the picture i not my type, she would snap like a twig.

God...that girl is anorexic without a doubt, and sadly others will be encouraging her to slowly kill herself, which is exactly what she is doing.

Social media is obviously influencing young girls (and maybe not so young ones) into looking a certain way.....huge fat arses are now considered an asset thanks to the Kardashian woman.

Young women have always been influenced by unreal body images and been told they are the norm...even when they have been airbrushed to perfection, but coveting a skeletal body is not only dangerous mentally, it's dangerous physically.

Twiggy (the 60's icon) was naturally thin, there is absolutely nothing natural about the girl in the pic above.

That is NOT a woman!!

I agree, she looks ridiculous.

People are becoming more and more vain and jealous and self-absorbed with their faces. My Facebook page is swamped with women selling make up and creams for this and foundation to make your face look like it's made of plastic.
Nobody looks real anymore.

I must be old-fashioned because I like a kooky kind of person. People who take forever to look good? Ugh. Please.
You have to look like you're gonna look, when you wake up in the morning. And don't get me started on Plastic surgery for the sake of it.

Vanity is a sin so the bible says.
I think the seven deadly sins are what's killing the world.

eddie wrote:I agree, she looks ridiculous.

People are becoming more and more vain and jealous and self-absorbed with their faces. My Facebook page is swamped with women selling make up and creams for this and foundation to make your face look like it's made of plastic.
Nobody looks real anymore.

I must be old-fashioned because I like a kooky kind of person. People who take forever to look good? Ugh. Please.
You have to look like you're gonna look, when you wake up in the morning. And don't get me started on Plastic surgery for the sake of it.

Vanity is a sin so the bible says.
I think the seven deadly sins are what's killing the world.

Greed certainly is....obesity is one of the biggest killers now in the Western world.

eddie wrote:I agree, she looks ridiculous.

People are becoming more and more vain and jealous and self-absorbed with their faces. My Facebook page is swamped with women selling make up and creams for this and foundation to make your face look like it's made of plastic.
Nobody looks real anymore.

I must be old-fashioned because I like a kooky kind of person. People who take forever to look good? Ugh. Please.
You have to look like you're gonna look, when you wake up in the morning. And don't get me started on Plastic surgery for the sake of it.

Vanity is a sin so the bible says.
I think the seven deadly sins are what's killing the world.

I like ones with unusually large heads

Some things have changed for the better; I can remember pouring over the 'discountinued Sears & Roebuck Catalog' {they didn't call them over stock or going out-of-stock} it was the annual DISCONTINUED ITEM'S limited selection - limited sizes catalog!  
For a home with 4 girls and limited income and we made 80% of our school clothes ...this annual event was BIGGER THAN CHRISTMAS at our house!  
The sizes ranged in discriptions from: little girls - girls - chubby girls - Jr. teens - ladies - womens! And I can remember the horror that my baby sister had every time her few special Sunday dresses had that label 'chubby girl' attached to the back of it --- we used to cut the labels off of all of our special order dresses so she wasn't made to feel different.  

Thankfully they stopped with that horrible size description, quite some time back.

Ha fucking ha. I did not have a big head in that picture.
It was the angle.

eddie wrote:Ha fucking ha. I did not have a big head in that picture.
It was the angle.  

I thought TDYK was meaning very very thin girls whos heads look large in comparative size to their bodies...lollypop heads they are sometimes called.

Syl wrote:

eddie wrote:Ha fucking ha. I did not have a big head in that picture.
It was the angle.  

I thought TDYK was meaning very very thin girls whos heads look large in comparative size to their bodies...lollypop heads they are sometimes called.

I know what you mean Syl and no, Dean (TDYK) is referring to a picture of me sitting on a chair leaning forward, (we all put up pics on a forum once, long ago). He said it made my head look bigger than normal

THAT "lollypop" * girl in that photo obviously has anorexia and the psychiatric problems that go with it...

SHE, and her equally crazy supporters, should all be sent off to clinics specialising in their brand of dysmorphia..

AND kept away from the internet, TV, fashion magazines, and like-minded souls, for the term of their treatments.          


"Lollypop" : an inflated head on a stick thin body.