Social Media and Body Image Blog Series #1: A Warning of The Dangers of Social Media Comparison
By Jamie Nelson
Part 1 of a three-part blog series created for Psy 460W, Psychology of Women, in Spring 2023.
You are a 12-year-old girl, ecstatic to be receiving your first iPhone from your parents. You think of the endless possibilities you have access to. You can talk to your friends whenever you want, but you do not want the accessibility to stop there. You download Instagram, create a profile, and follow all your friends so you can see what they are doing each day. Rather than images of your best friend’s puppy, Instagram floods your feed with advertisements for clothes, swimsuits, and shoes. You consciously observe the products while your mind subconsciously processes the bodies of the women that are perfectly posed and photoshopped. In a short time, you notice things about your own body that you did not think twice about: the gap between your legs, the curves on your hips, and the width of your stomach. Your desire to mirror social media portrays overrides your desire for basic human needs. You think that you have no choice but to restrict yourself from food to attain a flatter stomach and larger leg gap.
Now, you are celebrating your 13th birthday. You will not allow yourself to eat the cake in celebration because you cannot afford the extra calories. What started as excitement and hope transformed into anxiety and comparison. You do not understand what is happening, all you know is that you want
what they have. But why? Why have you started critiquing your body? Why are you comparing yourself to highlight reel photographs? This occurrence is known as “compare and despair”. The compare and despair mentality describes the impact of constantly comparing yourself to others and feeling as though you are not good enough. A constant influx of content provides the opportunity for comparison practices to emerge, especially in young girls. This effect can negatively impact their self-esteem.
Low self-esteem issues can lead to more serious mental health issues such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorders. Social media contributes to the prevalence of eating disorders in young girls and women by creating unrealistic body ideals. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that the global eating disorder prevalence increased from 3.4% to 7.8% between 2000 and 2018 which equates to 70 million people internationally. These statistics should be concerning. Young girls and women do not have the tools to control the effects of social media on their body image and self-esteem.
Social media is especially dangerous because you may not even be aware of the negative toll it is taking on your mental health until it is too late. Unknowingly absorbing the contents of various social media platforms causes a conflicting internal battle. It is important to acknowledge these dangers so that you can learn the skills to manage the information that you are exposed to. Specific skills for combatting the compare and despair effect are outlined in my second post for this blog series.
You are 14 years old. You were warned and informed about the effects of social media on your mental health. You learned how to positively navigate social media. You have a healthy relationship with food and your body. You understand that your imperfect body is perfect.
References
Compare and despair: How to stop the cycle of comparison - 2023. MasterClass. (2022, September 15). Retrieved April 17, 2023, from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/compare-and-despair
Galmiche, M., Déchelotte, P., Lambert, G., & Tavolacci, M. P. (2019). Prevalence of eating disorders over the 20002018 period: A Systematic Literature Review. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 109(5), 14021413. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqy342