Social Media’s Impact on Body Standards

By Rachel Nadelmann ‘25
Although social media can be an exciting outlet for teenagers to connect with friends and share posts on various platforms, it also fosters an environment where girls obsess over comparing themselves and their lives to others. 

Society has always judged women, especially teenage girls and young women, on their appearance. Over the past few decades, television, magazines and other forms of media have increasingly played a dominant role in defining body standards for women with the rise of social media in the 21st century accelerating this trend. 
Teenage girls, specifically, spend a lot of time contemplating whether to post a picture on social media, questioning how their peers will perceive them and comparing themselves to their friends. Due to this focus outward perception, many pick apart their own appearance. After spiraling down a tunnel of negative thoughts, girls can feel negatively about themselves and their body image, losing confidence and self-esteem. 
Not only are girls bombarded with photos and posts of their peers, but many of these photos have also been touched up to make them appear increasingly appealing. Photoshop and other retouching applications are growing more common, especially among celebrities like the Kardashian clan, known for photoshopping their bodies or faces to appear more attractive and enforce society’s beauty standards. 
This editing software is detrimental to young girls who falsely believe the people portrayed in these touched-up photos represent an achievable standard of appearance. For example, in an image intended to display Khloe Kardashian's new hair, commenters were more fixated on the fact that her face looked like it had been retouched, with some even claiming she looked “unrecognizable.” These images are photoshopped to hide imperfections on one’s body, setting a false narrative of body standards for girls worldwide. 
The innate tendency to compare oneself unfavorably to one’s peers and celebrities ultimately causes a severe blow to one’s confidence. All too often, this steady assault on girls’ self-esteem directly results from time spent on social media; the more time girls spend online, the more time they spend comparing themselves to others, diminishing mental health and self esteem. 
However, the growth of social media has also prompted an increase in realistic and empowering content, which reminds girls that imperfections are normal. Celebrities like Selena Gomez are vocal about their struggles with body image, creating an environment where girls feel comfortable openly expressing their own insecurities. In an attempt to speak to the minds of impressionable young girls, Gomez advises to “be honest. Be very intentional at what you’re paying attention to. Try to remove yourself from images that 99.9 (percent) of the time are just images that are not necessarily real.”
 The prominence of social media in daily life, though helpful in many aspects, has also proved damaging to the mental health of many girls. We, as a society, must remind ourselves that social media tends to spotlight only the “perfect” parts and does not accurately represent one’s life. Therefore, it is essential to distance ourselves from social media to prevent that inevitable comparison with others, reminding ourselves that someone else’s appearance or life does not define our worth.