About body shaming during adolescence

Hello, I’m Larisa, and I’m a PhD candidate in Cognitive Neuroscience in London. Welcome back to the Mental Health for Romania podcast! In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about body shaming during adolescence. This episode has been produced in partnership with Ridmi Magazine, a publication dedicated to sharing uncensored stories about education in Romania. We warmly invite you to explore their website.

Adolescence is a stage of development characterised by numerous biological, cognitive, social, psychological, and academic changes, including the transition to high school. It is a period when we become more self-conscious and increasingly concerned about our weight and physical appearance. As our bodies change during puberty, our appearance may either come closer to or move further away from our ideal body image.

In general, dissatisfaction with one’s physical appearance is more pronounced among girls (with studies estimating it to affect between 24% and 46%), although it is also experienced by boys, albeit to a lesser extent, with estimates ranging from 12% to 26%.

Dissatisfaction with the way we look can have a significant impact on our self-esteem, and many adolescents struggle with low self-esteem. On top of that, there are certain social expectations that many of us feel pressured to meet – a slimmer body for women, in most cases, and a more muscular physique for men. That said, it’s important to remember that these beauty standards vary across cultures. In some cultures, for example, slimmer women are considered more attractive, whereas in others, curvier body types are more highly valued. Dissatisfaction with our appearance, low self-esteem, and intense social pressure can all lead to unhealthy changes in our eating habits and may even contribute to the development of eating disorders during adolescence.

Now let’s introduce the concept of body shaming more specifically. In a 2021 study, 25 participants were asked to define body shaming, and the researchers combined their responses into the following definition: body shaming is an act in which someone expresses unsolicited, and usually negative, opinions or comments about another person’s body. These comments typically relate to a person’s body size, shape, weight, or even specific body parts. The person making the comments may not necessarily have bad intentions, but the person receiving them experiences them as negative and humiliating in relation to their physical appearance. In other words, body shaming can also occur as a result of comments that were made with good intentions (for example, someone telling a friend that they should lose weight for health reasons). Body shaming can happen both in person—for example, at school, from teachers, classmates, friends, or parents—and online. In short, body shaming is a form of social aggression and can be directed both at people who are overweight (what we would call fat-shaming) and at those who are underweight (often referred to as skinny-shaming).

Body shaming is, of course, not a new phenomenon, but it has become even more concerning today, as adolescents are growing up with social media, which inevitably encourages comparison, places greater emphasis on how we present ourselves to others, and provides an environment where likes and comments can be shared with ease. Before social media, you couldn’t receive comments from strangers about your appearance while sitting at home. You had to go outside and interact with people. Now, however, you can be in the comfort of your own home and still receive those kinds of comments. In other words, the way we present ourselves online can be criticised at any time, and messages can spread instantly. This can be particularly harmful because we’re not naturally equipped to deal with constant, unsolicited feedback. In fact, Google Trends shows that searches for the term “body shaming” have steadily increased over the past five years, both in Romania and in other countries, including across Western Europe, such as the United Kingdom. A study conducted by Yahoo also found that 94% of the 2,000 adolescent girls in their sample and 64% of the adolescent boys had experienced body shaming online.

All of these statistics are, of course, deeply concerning for a number of reasons. First of all, body shaming can undermine our confidence in the way we look and may contribute to the development of eating disorders, which have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness. It can also contribute to depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphic disorder. In addition, it may lead to increased school absenteeism and, more generally, leave us feeling more insecure, ashamed, guilty, upset, and distressed. It can even affect the way we choose to interact with other people.

That said, there are steps we can take to deal with body shaming, both when we are the target of it ourselves and to help prevent it from happening to others.

1. The first step is to challenge negative thoughts and practise speaking to yourself in a more positive and compassionate way about your appearance.

2. Another helpful strategy is to remind yourself of all the ways your body enables you to live your life and carry out your daily activities. For example, your legs allow you to get from one place to another, your hands let you hug someone you care about, and your brain allows you to think and even listen to this podcast. Practising gratitude for your body and everything it does for you can help shift your perspective away from how you think you should look.

3. I also encourage you to think critically. When you see campaigns on social media or television, ask yourself whether what they’re promoting is realistic, whether it resonates with you, and what they’re trying to achieve through those images. Try to be mindful of the content you consume and filter out messages that aren’t healthy or helpful for you. And, of course, this applies to far more than just body shaming.

4. On a related note, I’d encourage you to curate your social media feed. Unfollow accounts that post content which doesn’t align with your values or leaves you feeling bad about yourself, and instead follow people who promote positive, healthy messages about body image. Think of it as a bit of spring cleaning for your social media feed.

5. Surround yourself with people who accept you for who you are and who also accept themselves as they are. I know that’s easier said than done, especially during adolescence, when we’re all trying to figure out who we are, fit in, and feel accepted by the people around us. Even so, the most important thing is to accept ouselves and avoid surrounding ouselves with people who make us feel ashamed of the way we look or who we are.

6. I’d also encourage you to become more aware of body shaming, so that you don’t unintentionally contribute to it yourself. As I mentioned earlier, these comments are often made with good intentions, which means we can make them without even realising it. For example, we might comment on someone’s body because we believe we’re helping them improve their health.

7. And, as always, if you’re struggling, dealing with low self-esteem, feeling anxious, or noticing obsessive thoughts or behaviours related to your appearance, we strongly encourage you to seek professional support. Therapy can help you develop greater self-awareness, learn healthy ways of coping with difficult emotions, and break unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaviour.

You may already be familiar with this resource, but if not, by visiting our website, mentalhealthforromania.org, you’ll find the “Mental Health for Romania Map of Professionals”, which includes around 200 mental health professionals across the country, helping you find the specialist best suited to your needs. You can filter the map according to the issue you’d like to address, your location, and you can even search for professionals who offer online therapy.

We also encourage you to visit Ridmi Magazine’s website, where they’ll be publishing a series of articles over the coming weeks about Romanian students’ experiences with body shaming. And, of course, if you have a story of your own that you’d like to share, we encourage you to get in touch with the team at Ridmi Magazine.

Until next time, we encourage you to give your social media feed a bit of a spring clean, to be more mindful of body shaming so that we don’t unintentionally contribute to it ourselves, even when our intentions are good, and, above all, to take care of yourself and your mental health. Speak to you again soon. Bye!