Art: Body Dissatisfaction Artist: Social Media

Beauty and body image are not universal and has always been socially determined in the world. The society always conceals the meaning of beauty and perfection by exposing a toxic model in the forefront as ideal. They have also changed across time and culture. In most of history, plumpness was considered ideal. Fuller figures and fuller stomachs became depicted as the ideal type at the beginning of the 20th century as a symbol of a well-fed individual with success and prosperity. In the 1920s, flatchested and straight hipped “boyish” figures were beautiful. ‘Pin-up’ girls were the type in the early 1940s and then came curvy or hour-glass figure which lasted for several decades. With increasingly thinner models in the 1960s, thinness became popular again and this ideal stayed and is becoming thinner. Ever since there has been a constant struggle for the people to stand at par with despite gender but struggle and social isolation has been witnessed among the females since time immemorial.

We live in a world where social media rules every realm of your life. Social media has turned out to be a space where users create selective self- presentations through images, messages and other content that they choose to share. Social networking platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Tinder, TikTok, etc. play a huge part in our daily pursuits even. Seeing millions of users from different social backgrounds the users are put in a position of mutual inspection of who stands better in the platform. It has a huge influence on our thoughts and minds and we are in an age of deteriorating self-love, bad mental health and self-harming body dissatisfaction among young women. Each and every day many new models are made and many social influencers born with millions of followers admiring them and intruding their personal and public life. From the moment they wake up till the go to bed, they remain active on social media and share their life through snaps. Flaunting their body and confidence are the highlights of this. The followers blindly view their life through the rectangles in their hand and do an introspection of whether they fall under the group that they admire. Despite the wide array of models and social influencers on social media platforms with varying body types, the users tend to follow more and worship the media images depicting the extremely thin body type which has always been considered ideal in the Western cultures and even in India today.

A major concern rising from this is body image issues. The models and actors having the so-called ‘perfect size zero body’ flood the feeds daily into every single user. The ordinary spectators viewing it develop insecurities and inferiority complex as they are unable to belong to that body type. Evaluation of oneself in comparison and struggle to become part of the majority is a basic human instinct. The instinct in oneself to conform to the group of so-called perfect kicks within each one of us which gives rise to insecurities and body dissatisfaction in oneself. The inability to join the group or their adherence to conformity develops even anxiety disorders in them. The insecurity and body dissatisfaction can even lead to self-hate. This not only deteriorates their mental health but also encourages them to start unhealthy diet practices with no proper guides leading to deteriorating health. Each time they look into the mirror, they feel more disappointed about themselves. This because they consider their size, weight, colour, and very insignificant aspect of your body to be a part of your identity. This pushes you into different states of unhealthy mental health like –

• Body Dysmorphic Disorder – This disorder of ‘imagines ugliness’ tempts the individuals to see a distorted and unreal image of what they look like forcing them to conceal and hide their identity to gain confidence.
• Anorexia Nervosa – This disorder is when the individual has an extreme fear of gaining weight.
• Bulimia Nervosa – This disorder is when the individual id very dissatisfied with their body due to their weight and shape.
• Depression – Thinking they are less attractive than they are and creating distorted images of themselves causes it.

It is very crucial to change the way they perceive their own body image because a positive view of self can be not just mental health upliftment but also a confidence booster. There are a few ways you can fight body dissatisfaction –

1. Stop the diet you are doing now – If you started the diet because of your very same insecurity and not because of your health concern or unhealthy BMI, stop your diet right away. Dieting won’t make you feel healthier but will only help you with losing your energy and self-esteem. It leaves you with a sense of hopelessness. If you want to watch your diet, watch the calorie intake or get a good guide on what diest keep you healthy from a person with good knowledge about it. Skipping a meal is a foolish idea to slim down yourselves.
2. Discover the reasons for your negative body image – Deal with your emotions first before you start disregarding and hating your body. Fat is not an emotion but rather there will be some underlying emotional struggles that make you think like that
3. Hunt for more body positivity – If you check on your following list, the most numbers of influencers that you regularly stalk or you are familiar with will be the ones with the thin bodies when there are hundreds of influencers out their spreading body positivity. People from around the globe with your body type who talk confident, feel confident and act confident and their positivity is super contagious. Follow whats good for you leave behind the toxicity. Consider every size and shape to be beautiful.
4. Question the portrayal of acceptability by social media – Not your every neighbour, classmate, cousin, a friend is of the thin and fit body. It is a spectrum. You are one in it. There is no position of perfect or imperfect in this spectrum. It’s much like a rainbow and wherever you fall in, you rule.
5. Accept your genetics, Fight Fatism and befriended your body – Don’t hate the scars, stretch marks or cellulite. It all the part of the art your body wants to create. Life is without filters at the end of the day and remember, these shouldn’t make you less of you and a stronger person. Find metaphors for your scars that can make you feel fierce. Accept all shapes and sizes. Focus on health and not on size.