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Body image

This article is more than 4 years old

Social media and celebrity

culture 'harming young
people'
Young people’s mental health damaged by
‘unobtainable’ body image in online world

Nazia Parveen
@NParveenG
Mon 23 Jul 2018 00.01 BST

Airbrushed photographs of celebrities with

perfectly preened bodies staged in exotic
locations are all over social media, but such
flawless images have been described as
damaging for the way they pressurise young
people to meet unobtainable body-image
standards.

Most children own a smartphone by the age

of 10, and this has in turn led to increasing
pressure on youngsters to look perfect in their
online lives, a study has found.

The youth charity YMCA spoke to more than

1,000 young people aged between 11 and 16.
They found that 62% of 15 to 16-year-olds felt
that social media had ramped up
expectations over their personal appearance.
Photoshopped images and the sharing of only
the most flattering shots shifted young
people’s understanding of what a normal
body looked like, the charity said.

Ideals of physical
perfection were also said
to be driven by celebrity
culture, with 58% of 11 to
Health fears over
boys as young as 13 16-year-olds identifying it
using steroids for
'good looks'
as the main influence.

Read more Denise Hatton, the chief

executive for YMCA
England and Wales, said: “We’ve all been
guilty of only posting our most flattering
pictures on social media. While there’s
nothing wrong with wanting to show yourself
from your best angle, it’s important that we
still like ourselves when we’re not looking our
best, which is probably the majority of the
time for most of us.”

Social media was already a concern among 11

to 12-year-olds, with 43% of those surveyed
claiming individuals they saw on online
influenced them.

The charity has joined Dove, the health and

beauty products company, for its Be Real
Campaign, which is asking people to sign up
to its body image pledge, IPledgeToBeReal.

It urges social media users to stop editing

their pictures and to hold brands and
organisations responsible for not promoting
healthy body images and diversity.

Hatton said: “Today’s

beauty standard is
completely unobtainable,
leading us to constantly
How the
Kardashians sold feel bad about our bodies
their terrifying sex
glamazon look to
and looks. This is
the world particularly the case for
Read more
young people and it can
have serious effects on
their mental and physical wellbeing.

“It’s time to take back control of how we feel

about our bodies and celebrate our real self so
that everyone can feel confident in their body
this summer and beyond.”

Increasing numbers of academic studies have

found that mental health problems have
soared among girls over the past decade,
coinciding with the period in which young
people’s use of social media has exploded.

Dr Bernadka Dubicka, the chair of the child

and adolescent faculty at the Royal College of
Psychiatrists, said last year: “There is a
growing crisis in children and young people’s
mental health, and in particular a gathering
crisis in mental distress and depression
among girls and young women.”

Dubicka said social media such as Snapchat

and Instagram “can be damaging and even
destructive” to girls’ mental wellbeing.
“There’s a pressure for young people to be
involved 24/7 and keep up with their peer
group or they will be left out and socially
excluded.”

Social media use has also contributed to a

increasing sleep deprivation among young
people, which could both be a symptom of
mental illness and also raise the risk of it
developing, she added.

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Topics
Body image
Young people / Mental health / Social media / Celebrity /
Health & wellbeing / news

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