Source: Good Housekeeping

Instagram has been known to be a catalyst for the body image issues of the teen girls who populate the app, but recently, some influencers have flipped the script and started to spread a movement of body positivity and self-acceptance. Influencers popularly portray idealized bodies and conventional ideas of beauty, but there is now a wave of normalizing and cherishing all types of bodies. Instagram’s new wave of body-positive influencers is helping to shift the stigma of conventional beauty on social media. 

Here’s the Problem

Instagram is a popular social media app where people can share their lives with their followers. The app is populated by many adolescents, especially teen girls, who are facing detrimental images of socially perfect bodies. The “highlight reel” that is Instagram, is used mostly for people to present the picture-perfect sides of their lives, but this has demolished the self-confidence and outward view of girls. An article from the National Library of Medicine states that, “[i]dealized body images shared on the platform have been associated with lower levels of body satisfaction in this population, likely due to social comparison processes.” The skinny, acne-free women that young girls see on their Instagram feeds are not what the majority of women look like, and this fake reality is causing many problems. That same source also mentions that “[p]hysical appearance, in fact, plays an important role on Instagram, and studies have found that adolescents and young people experience distress, are dissatisfied with their bodies, and feel the pressure to look perfect on social media, especially when confronted with thin ideals.” Being a young adult gets even harder when body image issues are introduced, and this is not a new occurrence. Another article from Time Magazine states that “[a]n internal Instagram presentation from March 2020 seen by the Journal said that when 32% of teenage girls ‘felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.’” Instagram exacerbates the already heightened sense of body dysmorphia and societal expectations in teen girls, but there has been an increasing amount of influencers who are fighting the harmful waves of unrealistic body images on the app. 

Making a Change 

Although the amount of unhealthy expectations on Instagram is large, there is a wave of influencers who are trying to show the truth to the millions of young girls who are on the app. 

Laeti Decaru posing Source: Instagram 

Laeti Decaru is one of many social media influencers who promote body positivity. An article from ascjcapstone.com says that “Decaru’s goal with her platform is to create content that she would have needed as a young girl — posting candid documents of her self-confidence journey and raw footage of her mental health battles.” Influencers like this help to change the stigma around health and beauty by showing healthy and normal bodies online. Another influencer helping to promote body positivity and acceptance is Marielle Greguski. 

Marielle Greguski posing Source: Instagram

An article from The List tells readers that “She has a fun, laid-back, real-girl vibe that delivers something different than the ultra-thin, ultra-perfect influencers you might be used to seeing on your social media feeds.” Seeing real people, unfiltered and normal, helps to change the view that young girls might have about healthy and pretty people. While some influencers are promoting whole-body positivity, others are choosing to focus on more specific areas. Glamour Magazine states that “[a]s humans (read: not picture perfect robots), we boast bumps, lines, scars, spots and dark circles, we have texture and dullness, we have good skin days and bad skin days.” Everyone knows that acne and skin marks happen, but because they aren’t shown online, people have begun to assume that they aren’t normal. 

Izzie Rodgers posing Source: Daily Star 

The above article mentions Izzie Rodgers, “a skin-positive, acne-advocating influencer who explores her relationship with acne through her abundantly creative Instagram account.” Content creators like Izzie, Marielle, and Laeti are starting to sprout up all over social media, especially Instagram. They are helping to take back the idea of beauty standards, and fight the harmful stereotypes that are abundant on the platform. 

What Can You Do?

Following these body-positive creators, along with finding others who populate the app is a helpful way to learn more about body positivity and practice it as individuals. In addition, unfollowing creators who promote unhealthy and unrealistic beauty standards can help to reduce the amount of information spread from those creators. 

                  Source: Forbes 

Let’s Keep It Going

Harmful body standards are detrimental to the mental and physical health of all humans, but especially young girls. If influencers keep promoting unrealistic and unhealthy expectations for the “perfect body,” it will cause significant damage to this young generation. Flipping the script and promoting body positivity, acceptance, and normalcy is the way to help everyone feel comfortable in their own skin and change their minds about what health and wellness look like.