Hello again! Welcome back to another topic in the body positivity series. Today, I'm taking on a big one. The celebrity culture. Throughout a lot of the other topics, we've discussed how the media and a celebrity culture can have a negative impact on our self-esteem. First of all, I have to point out how difficult it must be to constantly be in the public eye, to be body shamed and verbally attacked for perfectly normal features. A lot of celebrities and influencers have recently taken to social media to express their body positivity, including Stacey Solomon who frequently shares unedited pics of her stomach in real-life positions to show that no one is completely flat and that she is proud of her figure post-children. That message is so empowering to me, so I have to admit that celebrity culture doesn't always have a negative impact on our body image. However, a celebrity culture in which photo shopping is normalised and figures are portrayed at their best angles in the best lighting is a little unrealistic. Plus, we have to bare in mind that these people are literally paid to look the way they do. Their jobs are to work out, wear nice things and constantly look their best, which must be exhausting, but it's also an unrealistic portrayal of real-life. An article in the Guardian found that a survey carried out by the YMCA youth charity discovered that 62% of 15-16 year old's felt that social media increased their expectations of how they should look. A celebrity culture is damaging minds from a young age and training them to believe that they are not enough when in fact the image they're aiming to live up to is often unobtainable. 58% of 11-16 year old's were reported as claiming a celebrity culture was the main influence in their desire to achieve 'physical perfection'. We have to start changing the way we feel about our bodies and accepting that they are functioning just perfectly as they are. We're all guilty of selecting the most flattering photos of ourselves to showcase to the world via social media. It's the way our brains have been trained, to only show what we deem to be the best of ourselves. In a sense, we are striving to conform to this celebrity culture by also adopting the mentality that we must edit our photos and snap at what we are told is our 'best angle'. This is only creating more mental health problems and promoting anxiety and depression from such a young age. The likes of Face Tune and Photoshop have a lot to answer for in terms of deteriorating our self-esteem. All in all, I'd say we need to quit comparing ourselves to others, celebrity or not, and start appreciating ourselves for what we are. We don't need an app to edit our features. We don't need to touch up our 'flaws'. We need to be complimenting each other and ourselves. With that in mind, I've decided to do a slightly different post for tomorrow's addition. I'll be focusing on dealing with insecure peers and how we can help others to acknowledge their worth and improve their self confidence. Until next time, beauties!
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