The Body Confidence Crisis

One major area of our lives that is affected heavily by social media is how we feel about our body and appearance. A quick look on Instagram hashtags shows 1.3 million #bodyconfidence tags and 14.5 million #bodypositive tags as users try to take back control over feeling good about their pictures.

We look into this further with Isle Of Paradise, retailers of self-tan drops.
The state of body confidencer
It’s not new information that media can have damaging effects on our self-esteem. So many of us have learnt to feel that way through television and magazine covers from a young age. At one point, we were all blissfully unaware of how we looked as children, rocking that second-skin swimsuit without a care in the world. Over time, this changed, and we became aware of things by comparing ourselves to others. This comparison has simply been made much more accessible at our fingertips.
Media representationr
The main reasons respondents believed were the root cause of negativity were Instagram, edited photos from influencers, lack of body type variation shown in marketing, bullying online, magazines, a lack of diversity and inclusion.

Andrew commented: “We all know that images can be filtered, that people are presenting the very best take on their lives.

“What I notice is that most of us can intellectualise what we see on social media platforms – we know that these images and narratives that are presented aren’t real, we can talk about it and rationalise it – but on an emotional level, it’s still pushing buttons. If those images or narratives tap into what we aspire to, but what we don’t have, then it becomes very powerful.”
Changing the normr
It is up to celebrities and brands to take responsibility for creating this new and distorted norm that is affecting the lives of many people. Brands should be inclusive to evolve what is the norm – when attractive and slim white girls are the only body type used across marketing, we see anything else as undesirable.

Sources:

https://theisleofparadise.com/tan-shop/drops