Social Media and Body Image

These days body shaming is everywhere. I turn on TV and see a commercial telling me how these jeans will slim the look of my waist line. I get in my car, turn on  the radio and the first thing I hear is an ad for some miracle diet pill that will help me lose weight. I get to work and all of the women are talking about how much they hate their body and need to lose weight. I go out with my friends and find that both guys and girls talk about what diet they have recently started. With all of this going on around me, is it any wonder that when I look in the mirror the first thing I do is start to pick apart places I need to improve?

I think the thing that bothers me most is the message we are sending to kids. This next generation never knew of a life without without social media. They are constantly being fed all of these lies that companies use to make a little bit more money. What is this doing? Here are some scary statistics I got from the NEDA website :

• 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat (Mellin et al., 1991).

• 46% of 9-11 year-olds are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets, and 82% of their families are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets (Gustafson-Larson & Terry, 1992).

• Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives (Neumark-Sztainer, 2005).
• 35-57% of adolescent girls engage in crash dieting, fasting, self-induced vomiting, diet pills, or laxatives. Overweight girls are more likely than normal weight girls to engage in such extreme dieting (Boutelle, Neumark-Sztainer, Story, &Resnick, 2002; Neumark-Sztainer&Hannan, 2001; Wertheim et al., 2009). 

• Of American elementary school girls who read magazines, 69% say that the pictures influence their concept of the ideal body shape. 47% say the pictures make them want to lose weight (Martin, 2010).

This problem has gotten out of control. Those magazines the elementary school girls are reading have models that have all been photoshopped. No one actually looks like they do in the picture. Yet that is what is seen as being acceptable. 

Here is one example of how different the final image really looks from the person it started with. This isn't just a girl thing either. 

The media will pick apart you men too. So now we have boys and girls growing up thinking that they have to look pretty much perfect, which I know is just not possible. So what happens when they can't meet that standard look that the media gives us? They start to feel ashamed of the way they look. That's why we have statics like this: 

• The rate of development of new cases of eating disorders has been increasing since 1950 (Hudson et al., 2007; Streigel-Moore &Franko, 2003; Wade et al., 2011).
• There has been a rise in incidence of anorexia in young women 15-19 in each decade since 1930 (Hoek& van Hoeken, 2003).
• The incidence of bulimia in 10-39 year old women TRIPLED between 1988 and 1993 (Hoek& van Hoeken, 2003).
• The prevalence of eating disorders is similar among Non-Hispanic Whites, Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asians in the United States, with the exception that anorexia nervosa is more common among Non-Hispanic Whites (Hudson et al., 2007; Wade et al., 2011).

It's time for us to start fighting back. Letting companies know that it's not ok. Eating disorders are not some glamorous thing that will help you lose weight, be cool and fit in. Instead you will get this: 

In anorexia nervosa’s cycle of self-starvation, the body is denied the essential nutrients it needs to function normally. Thus, the body is forced to slow down all of its processes to conserve energy, resulting in:

• Abnormally slow heart rate and low blood pressure, which mean that the heart muscle is changing. The risk for heart failure rises as the heart rate and blood pressure levels sink lower and lower.
• Reduction of bone density (osteoporosis), which results in dry, brittle bones.
• Muscle loss and weakness.
• Severe dehydration, which can result in kidney failure.
• Fainting, fatigue, and overall weakness.
• Dry hair and skin; hair loss is common.
• Growth of a downy layer of hair—called lanugo—all over the body, including the face, in an effort to keep the body warm.

A review of nearly fifty years of research confirms that anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder (Arcelus, Mitchell, Wales, & Nielsen, 2011).

For females between fifteen to twenty-four years old who suffer from anorexia nervosa, the mortality rate associated with the illness is twelve times higher than the death rate of all other causes of death (Sullivan, 1995).

The recurrent binge-and-purge cycles of bulimia can affect the entire digestive system and can lead to electrolyte and chemical imbalances in the body that affect the heart and other major organ functions. Health consequences include:

• Electrolyte imbalances that can lead to irregular heartbeats and possibly heart failure and death.
• Electrolyte imbalance is caused by dehydration and loss of potassium, sodium and chloride from the body as a result of purging behaviors.
• Potential for gastric rupture during periods of binging.
• Inflammation and possible rupture of the esophagus from frequent vomiting.
• Tooth decay and staining from stomach acids released during frequent vomiting.
• Chronic irregular bowel movements and constipation as a result of laxative abuse.
• Peptic ulcers and pancreatitis.

And that is just the physical side effects. Let's not forget that eating disorders are a mental illness. And I'm not even going to go into how poorly insurance covers treatment, I'll save that for another post. 

What if instead of focusing on what the media has to say we start focusing on what God has to say? Like 1 Peter 3:3-4 "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quite spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." And Psalm 139:14-16, " I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; you works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body." And what about 1 Samuel 15:30, "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." How much better would it be if kids growing up heard those words rather than the constant stream of perfecting one's self? If we could focus on who we are as a person, our morals, our values, the way we actually live our life not just what we say we believe in, how much better could this world be? 

As one person I can't change very much when it comes to changing the way social media has this ideal image that they use for everything. But if I stand up and say something, and someone else stands up and says something, maybe together we can actually make a change. 

Wandering Around In No Man's Land

"There's nothing ever wrong, but nothing's ever right

such a cruel contradiction"

Those lyrics from Shinedown's song "Burning Bright" describe perfectly the what I call "blah" feeling that comes along with being bipolar. It happens when you are floating between mania and depression but your mind seems incapable of deciding which of the two it would rather be. You know you are not in a full state of depression but you can feel it creeping up on you. It's that shadow that keeps following you around, but when you turn around to catch it there's nothing there. Then you just feel paranoid, like maybe everything is fine and you really aren't about to be sucked into that black hole of depression. This in-between time can be agonizing. The small bouts of mania that come about are a blessing and a curse. They keep you motivated and productive. But they are unpredictable so you may have no energy to complete your daily tasks during the day but then all of a sudden at 2:00 AM you have so many things you need to do. And you must do them all right now of course because you don't know how long this energy is going to last and quite frankly you have fallen a little behind on life while you were meandering around in no man's land.

This "blah" time is so frustrating to me because I feel off, but I can't quite place what it is exactly that is making me feel this way. There isn't really anything particularly wrong. I can still go to work and do my job well. I am still hanging out with friends and being my normal self. It just takes a little bit of extra energy to do all of that. I know I have all of these great things happening in my life so I should feel really happy. I want to feel happy. But instead I am ambivalent to everything. A part of my mind is screaming at me, "Come on, wake up! Stop coasting through life on autopilot, LIVE damn it! Stop wasting your days away. Do something. Feel something. Snap out of this funk you are in." And I want so desperately to do just that but somehow I can't. 

The good thing about "blah" time is that it is just a phase. Soon enough this too shall pass. When I feel overwhelmed or frustrated by this I remember this verse, "When you go through deep waters I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficultly you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you." Isaiah 43:2 That is all I need to hear. I know that no matter what life may throw at me I can and will cling to my faith. He has gotten me this far, I know He has much bigger things planned for me ahead. So I pray for the courage and the strength to do what He wants me to do and take it one small step at a time.