Body Image Research

 

Body Image research and facts

For my editorial project I chose to go down the route of social media and the impact is has on our bodies, i feel this is a very important current topic with more young people feeling pressured to live up this digitally created beauty standard. It is something that means something to me personally therefore i feel i will be able to put a lot of passion into my research and illustrations.

Therefore after choosing my project the next step was to start looking into researching the topic so I could really get s feel for the message I'm trying to create visually. 

- Social media is one of the biggest links to negative body image and social pressures by creating the idea of an 'unrealistic' beauty standard.

-A survey of 227 females students say they often com[are themselves negatively with the strongest group of comparison is in fact distant peers and acquaintances.

- The social media trend 'fitspiration' is seen as one of the most toxic and negative impacting types on social media by creating a sense of pressure and guilt on the viewer. 

- Recently the trend of body positivity has been growing all over social media, the idea of body positivity is look at how all bodies are beautiful with the idea being that you see more than just the unrealistic beauty type on Instagram.

- However whilst body positivity is great it can still cause pressure as its still gives that focus on the body and how people view us. 

- Researchers also looked into how we can spot certain patterns relating to body image with them finding the more time that a person perfects a selfie could be a sign that someone is struggling with their body image.

- The study also showed that the more time you spent on social media the worst impact it could have on you view on body image. 

Above shows a great example of an effective conceptual illustration that shows the idea of the negative effects that social media causes. Moving forward i intend to look at more images that communicate my topic to see how they could inspire my own work.