and so people will put
themselves in front of huge
potential audiences. They
don’t do it to get negative
feedback, and so end up
conforming even more to
gender stereotypes and
certain ideas about how
people should look.
A study published in
Computers in Human
Behavior in May 2018
surveyed 523 youngsters aged
between 11 and 16 about how
much they used highly visual
social media. Those who
spent more than two hours
per day online had more body
image problems than those
who didn’t log on for as long.
They could, of course, be
turning to social media
because they already have
body image concerns, but the
things they see there
reinforce a particular kind of
beauty, and that doesn’t help
them adjust to their personalfears. And even if that
particular kind of beauty is
clearly retouched or
Photoshopped, it’s those
images that become a source
of comparison.A Everyone is affected
This isn’t just a teenage thing,
either. In June 2018, a study
of people aged 17 to 30
published in Sex Roles found
that looking at images of
really fit people posing in a
really fit way, and doing really
fit things (just search for
#fitspo or #fitspiration to see
what I’m talking about) made
their participants feel bad
about themselves and put
them in a rotten mood. So
don’t do it. Looking at people
doing fitness isn’t aspirational;
it just makes you miserable.
Body positive people use
the same platform as the
#fitspo folks to celebrate our
lumpy, many-coloured
differences. But it turns out
that this isn’t a solution. I’ve
had a long-standingdiscussion with my husband
about the merits of Gok
Wan’s series How to Look
Good Naked. I’ve described
it as empowering and a great
step in focusing on the
beauty inside. My husband
has been more dismissive.
And now, I’m beginning to
agree: it seems that any
attention we pay to body
image makes us aware of
what we have and have not,
and makes the body the
fulcrum of our self-esteem.
What if, instead, we found
out what we’re really good
at? What if we celebrated
what gets us up in the
morning?
Perhaps then, we’ll be able
to relieve ourselves of all
that body loathing.
Hairy, or not. 7[email protected]Aleks Krotoski is a social
psychologist, broadcaster and
journalist. She presents
BBC Radio 4’s Digital Human.“They end up conforming
even more to gender
stereotypes.”
PHOTO: ROMAN SAMBORSKYI ILLUSTRATION: REBEKKA DUNLAP