Instagram by jieun 1605, Courtesy Pixabay. Creative Commons Lilcense
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y.
My friends and I look at girls on Instagram and we realize right away that we no longer like ourselves. We start over critiquing our bodies. We get up immediately to look in the mirror or start scrolling through our photos and nitpicking every flaw When I reached out to some of my friends their responses shocked me. Not only does Instagram make them pick themselves apart. But some also developed eating disorders and felt forced to take breaks because of the pressure to look a certain way.
Kayla Brownwell, 18, found herself on the downside.“Social media has made me develop eating disorders like anorexia. I knew it was bad when even though I hadn’t eaten all day, I still felt like I wasn’t thin enough to be like the girls on Instagram. I was later forced to delete social media for some time,” she said.
Another striking thing on Instagram is that White girls and Black girls have different influencer models who focus on different body types.
Take Alix Earle with 3.6 million followers on Instagram and 6.7 on TikTok. She seems like a White girl’s inspiration with bleached blonde hair, long legs, with a tiny waist.
Amanda Grover, 19, looks at Instagram influencers who she thinks she could look like with blonde hair and blue eyes. “ I love Alix Earle. I think she’s really pretty and just inspires girls to let loose. But she does make me feel insecure and wonder why doesn’t my body look like hers? Why won’t I ever be that thin?” she said.
But others, including a lot of Black women like my friends, go to Jayda Wayda with 8.9 million followers on Instagram and 4.5 million followers on TikTok.
She, like Earle, has big boobs, but it’s her butt that has people talking, especially in the Black community where having a larger butt and wider hips are trendy
Shaina Peart, 19, another Instagram fan said, “I aspire to have a life like Jayda Wayda and she makes me consider getting surgery. If you don’t like your body and have money to change it. I don’t see the problem. It shouldn’t be something that is looked down upon.”
In some ways, Jayda personifies the slim-thick body type. “A “slim thick” figure is used to describe a woman with a small waist, flat stomach, and larger hips, rear, and thighs, who also is muscled and well-toned. “ said Sophia Choukas-Bradley who is director of the Teen and Young Adult Lab, and Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Influencers often use photo filters and edit their photos using photoshop or Facetune. It’s making young girls now want to alter themselves to fit a beauty standard that’s not even naturally obtainable.
A 2023 study found that “… Participants who reduced their social media use had a significant improvement in how they regarded both their overall appearance and body weight after the three-week intervention, compared with the control group, who saw no significant change. Gender did not appear to make any difference in the effects.”
Yet some seem to manage. “ I got both experiences without social media. I feel as though body standards have always been an issue even seeing people on TV. I wanted to be just as skinny as Halle Berry but now everyone wants to be as thick as they possibly can be with the tiniest waist which is just unnatural. I’ve learned to just be confident in my body and God made me how he wanted me,” said Brielle Butler, 28.
