Body image issues are getting worse
TikTok is the boulder that Sisyphus will never escape
Last week, U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy published a 53-page report stating that the pandemic has had “devastating” mental health effects on teenagers. While there are multivariate reasons for emergency room visits (for suicide attempts) in young girls, for example, the uptick in anxiety and depression is undeniable.
While the pandemic is front and center in this report, downstream effects from isolation and social distancing create an increase in mental health disorders. When forced to isolate, the screen in the palm of your hand replaces in-real-life reality. Murthy writes,
Young people are bombarded with messages through the media and popular culture that erode their sense of self-worth — telling them they are not good-looking enough, popular enough, smart enough or rich enough. That comes as progress on legitimate, and distressing, issues like climate change, income inequality, racial injustice, the opioid epidemic and gun violence feels too slow.
Along with an inability to actually connect with peers, social norms—and pressures—are predominantly expressed on social media. This was an issue before the virus came into play, mind you. According to a 2016 report by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, there were 229,000 cosmetic surgeries on teenagers; the biggest growth from the previous year was in male breast reductions.
A recent article in USA Today highlights newer trends in body manipulation, as seen on TikTok: glute pumping, lip plumping, and skin smoothing. Alia E. Dastagir crunches the numbers:
The body is a project. Just look at TikTok. Videos on #glutepumping are at 82 million views, #lipplumping has more than 300 million and #skintok 1.7 billion.
Body dysmorphia is nothing new. Fashion standards have existed for millennia, at the very least. There’s a world of difference between engaging in trends out of curiosity and social play and constantly feeling bad about your body. The latter is accelerating, both in terms of how quickly trends change and how many young people are stressed out over their inability to keep up.
Facetune is one thing: manipulating your image to look better on the screen. Actually manipulating your body with surgery after surgery is a hamster wheel that never satisfies; the same holds true with neurotoxic fillers. As New Yorker writer, Jia Tolentino, writes about “Instagram Face,”
Americans received more than seven million neurotoxin injections in 2018, and more than two and a half million filler injections. That year, Americans spent $16.5 billion on cosmetic surgery; ninety-two per cent of these procedures were performed on women. Thanks to injectables, cosmetic procedures are no longer just for people who want huge changes, or who are deep in battle with the aging process—they’re for millennials, or even, in rarefied cases, members of Gen Z. Kylie Jenner, who was born in 1997, spoke on her reality-TV show “Life of Kylie” about wanting to get lip fillers after a boy commented on her small lips when she was fifteen.
The notion of trickling down doesn’t only apply to economics, or, as I regularly argue in this column, wellness. We’re easily influenced animals, and our looks are often top of mind when considering social status (even though research has shown that we’re more concerned about our appearances than our peers). In order to stay relevant, celebrities are constantly changing their faces—and not on Facetune—to keep up with rapidly evolving trends. Forget about quarterly injectables; surgeries are now annual.
And, as expected, this trend too has a racial element, according to Cary Gabriel Costello, an associate professor of sociology and director of LGBTQ+ Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Speaking on trends that lead away from the skinny neurosis that dominated the nineties to the thicker bodies of today, she says,
This aesthetic is ostensibly more 'multiethnic,' and less Eurocentric, which sounds like an improvement. But it can also be viewed as an appropriation by white people of features typical of Black and brown people – with white people getting all of the benefit and none of the discrimination when taking on these trending looks.
The hamster wheel negatively impacts women more than men, Dastagir writes, though gay men and transgender people put more pressure on themselves to manipulate their looks and stay current with trends as well. She notes that straight men tend to focus more on accomplishments than looks—which creates other neuroses, of course.
For the moment, we’re focused on looks.
My wife recently shared the following tweet with me. It summates my own previous battle with body dysmorphia, being of Eastern European stock myself. True, it plays more to the “achievement” aspect than looks, but also expresses a sense of humility—and honestly with who he is.
Coming to terms with who we are is essential for stable mental health. None of this is to dissuade the drive to stay healthy, exercise, eat well, and chase after goals. But when the goal shifts every few months, bringing with it constant dissatisfaction and judgment, then we can be certain there’s nothing positive waiting: no sense of levity, no inner peace, just a constant simmering tension that we’re never good enough.
And that’s no way to live.