Often as individuals there are some things we don’t like about ourselves which could be our eyes, smile, nose, a flabby stomach and the list goes on.
However, most people accept these flaws and move on with their lives, but there are certain individuals who suffer from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD).
These individuals become fixated on that imperfection and think about their real or perceived flaws for hours each day.
These obsessive and controlling thoughts can cause you to spend excessive amounts of time trying to cover or conceal the flaw. BDD individuals can’t control their negative thoughts and don’t believe people who tell them that they look fine.
According to Mayo Clinic Body dysmorphia is described as a “mental illness involving obsessive focus on a perceived flaw in appearance.
The flaw may be minor or imagined. But the person may spend hours a day trying to fix it. The person may try many cosmetic procedures or exercise excessively.
People with this disorder may frequently examine their appearance in a mirror, constantly compare their appearance with that of others and avoid social situations or photos.
Treatment may include counselling and antidepressant medication.”
With the rise of social media which has been integrated into our everyday lives, platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat have been found to be the main causes that contribute to body dysmorphia among teens and young adults.
In a world filled with Instagram models, and Twitter-famous celebrities, it is no wonder our generation has become so obsessed with the concept of perfection.
When scrolling through our feeds, we are exposed to a highly-curated selection of photos, images, and snaps that are far from our reality.
According to Matthew Schulman, a plastic surgeon in New York, says “patients have been coming in with Snapchat filtered selfies to show what they want done to their body.”
Due to constant exposure to altered images, it has been proven to be one of the main cause which leads to unhealthy pressure to achieve unrealistic body types, which can result in body dysmorphic behaviors.
Social media has become increasingly dangerous, especially for teens, who are most susceptible to suffering from insecurity and depression. At this age, girls and boys are still learning about their own anatomy while dealing with hormones, pressures from school, and other home life distractions. These factors, combined with constant pressure from the media telling young people that they should be thin, curvy, sexy, brainy, cultured or woke, can be very overwhelming on the psyche.
Nowadays people can no longer post silly images on social media due to the fear of judgement, our lives have become filter centred, quality, theme, purpose, hashtags and captions. Our feeds have become an overly-curated forum in which people post to seek approval from others by meeting societal standards of self-image. Crawford, a researcher on children’s obsession with media, states, “the problem is that this ‘cyber self’ can become increasingly distant from the real-world self, and it can become harder to live up to the perfect image of self that is projected online.”
However social media is not the only one to be blamed for BDD, the media as well for the lack of representation in magazines, in cosmetic beauty products and so much more.
Young people are often exposed to the media’s unrealistic view of the world through social media or the media in general, which includes television, social media, and peer competition which has their own influence on body dysmorphia, eating disorder symptoms, and overall life satisfaction.
An easy solution that many practitioners recommend is to put down the phone; however, many specialists don’t realise that the media is combination of billboards, magazines, and advertisements everywhere, how do we teach young people to become non-affected by the media that they are exposed to?
According to Tom Quinn, an eating disorder specialist, “teaching emotional intelligence and embedding coping mechanisms into the school curriculum can ensure that young people grow up not only aware of their emotional needs but also enable them to support themselves.”
