For years, the media has created unrealistic standards of beauty and body image.

This statement, made a few seconds after the start of this interesting (and not in its positive sense) video, leads us directly to two questions. Actually, three:

1) What is body image?

2) What are the effects of these unrealistic standards?

3) What are the effects of these unrealistic standards on young minds?

Let’s start from the easiest part. Body image is the mental representation that we build ourselves. Quite often, unfortunately, this can create a strong dissatisfaction, resulting in disorders frequently correlated to food (but not only).

But what causes this dissatisfaction? The answers can indeed be many. One in particular, however, is recurrent: the media. Whether they are ‘social’ or ‘mass’, these powerful tools are creating a kind of tacit handbook on what it means to be beautiful: narrow waist, toned bum, a C-cup (minimum), super skinny legs, big eyes, straight nose, plump lips and long voluminous hair. Of course, and how it should naturally be, not all women have these features. And here come the problems.

The constant bombardment of images depicting women to be apparently perfect, to which teenage girls are subjected daily, may give rise to a number of uncertainties that could result in mental disorders. If for some, decades ago, taking a photo resulted in stealing one’s soul, nowadays a photo can steal the serenity of young girls who then start to starve themselves or think of possible plastic surgeries to look more like the model/”it girl” of the moment.

And this is why watching the video mentioned at the beginning of the article is very important.

Published by SheKnows, it’s part of the Hatch Program, whose aim is to sensitise teenagers, children, parents and educators on all those social issues that could potentially undermine people’s self-esteem or self-expression.

In this specific video, a group of girls were invited to discuss how the media influences their perception of their own bodies, and how harmful the standards of beauty are today (or should we say western?).

The answers, honest and sincere, are interrupted by statistics concerning the lives of teenagers, such as:

“It is estimated that 1.3M adolescent girls in the US have anorexia. This disorder has one of the highest suicide rates of any psychiatric condition”.

The shock of these claims, however, is a bit softened by the smiles of the girls who, at the end of the video, show a series of self-portraits to show what they love the most about their bodies (an exercise that we should all maybe try to do). The message is therefore clear: we need to love ourselves for who we are, because we are all beautiful and perfect.

The Hatch Program is definitely an interesting program to keep an eye on, even as a starting point for future debates and discussions. So why not start from this video, to begin a first debate? What do you think of the influence of the media on body image? Have you also suffered because of these unattainable and unrealistic beauty standards? Let us know in the comments what you think and, if you want, leave a self-portrait to show us what you love the most about your body!

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