The Beauty standard is changing and many old trends coming back and becoming popular again. Many of the bad things that went with those trends are back that many people fought hard to get rid of and people are trying to appeal to these standards but they are doing dangerous things to maintain these standards.
Being the “it girl” and clean eating is huge and it’s everywhere, as great as it may seem on the outside a dark truth lies in the cracks. These trends or beauty standards are promoting eating disorders such as anorexia and a newer eating disorder named orthorexia (The obsession with ‘pure eating) and causing many people who don’t fit these standards to develop body dysmorphia or doing dangerous things like purging or using drugs to get to the standard. With popular trends from the 2000s coming back, it’s also making thinspo and the beauty standard of being extremely thin comeback. All of this content is being posted all over social media and due to the rise of TikTok and Instagram, it’s all Gen Z sees which leads to body image issues and people feeling like they need to look like these standards to be perfect.
Gen Z is constantly online and surrounded by heavily edited photos and/or videos of people making them look ‘perfect’. The Bengal Beat interviewed Mrs. Price, a counselor at Lucy Beckham High School about why she believes why more and more people are starting to develop eating disorders and body image issues and she said, ¨I think with the prevalence of social media there more opportunities for kids to see images of what the ideal body should look like and they may not realize that these are unattainable images because they are filtered and edited¨.
Wellness and fitness influencers are flooding people’s feeds, feeding them with unhealthy and unrealistic advice, pushing people to develop an unhealthy relationship with food, and focusing on restricting and counting calories to reach unrealistic beauty standards. Many celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow are promoting unhealthy and restrictive ways of life and also, many celebrities are losing weight drastically and are even being accused of using prescription drugs to reduce their appetite and lose pounds and social media continues to glamorize undereating and unrealistic beauty standards.
But it’s not just Girls in Gen Z that are being affected by this but it’s also boys too. Toxic gym culture and looking perfect are making many boys develop body dysmorphia and muscle dysmorphia. Trends like Mewing, or Looksmaxxing are trends that are shown as improving yourself but they’re there to just make people insecure and think they have to change everything about themselves and make them think they have to ‘glow up’.
To battle with these Unrealistic standards, many trends like Body positivity and Body Neutrality are coming out. These trends focus on embracing and loving your flaws and focusing on rebuilding people’s self-esteem and making them learn to love themselves again. Even though many people are suffering due to these standards, many people are trying to make things better improve society’s standards, and embrace every body type. When asked if she had any advice for students struggling with these issues by the Bengal Beat Mrs. Price says, ¨Be happy with your own healthy body, and try to limit your social media use¨
