Is There Too Much Pressure on Girls to Have ‘Perfect’ Bodies? (Writing - Izzy)

Blog Post 4 (Writing): Is There Too Much Pressure on Girls to Have ‘Perfect’ Bodies?

Almost every form of media in history before this decade has portrayed the ideal young woman as a female with toned legs, a nonexistent waist, and a sizable chest. Women have been objectified and forced into unnatural shapes to please the male gaze, continuously putting themselves through painful processes to appease others. Even as body positivity has entered the conversation, there will always be new trends that promote the “perfect” body shape, as if a girl can just snap her fingers and change her entire physique to whatever is popular. Social media has been a more recent addition to the conversation of body image, and it tends to cause more problems than anything good. Young girls are often sucked into the power and “fun” of social media, only to spend countless hours online, comparing themselves to something a celebrity has posted online that is usually heavily edited and distorted. So, yes, the amount of pressure put on girls to have the “perfect” body is ridiculous and has sometimes life-threatening and long-term effects on our health.

To most girls, the “perfect” body is skinny, skinny, and then skinny again. It’s almost a guarantee that every girl has looked in the mirror at least once in her life and judged herself because she doesn’t look like the pictures in the magazines or the ones on Instagram and TikTok. We are taught to want and need to achieve the hourglass shape, with wide hips but a tiny waist, to push ourselves through pain so we can achieve a flat stomach. The “perfect” body isn’t just our shape, however, but our complexions, the shapes of our eyes, our noses, the color of our irises, the texture of our hair; essentially every little minuscule detail about ourselves that is unique, but something we could be judged for. Beauty standards are different in every country, but the obsession with skinniness is spreading. In a 2024 study from Psychiatry Online of 7,654 5-19 year olds, data shows that 2% of the adolescent population in England has body dysmorphic disorder, which is defined as “Preoccupation with one or more perceived personal defects or flaws in physical appearance that are not observable or appear slight to others…concerns with body fat or weight…” (Moran). Further statistics show that BDD shows up more commonly in teenage girls (1.8%) than boys (0.3%) and symptoms for the disorder show up more in 12-19 year old adolescents (1.9%) (Moran). This data proves that while boys also struggle with body image, girls are more commonly subjected to judgement and content that forces them to see their bodies in a harmful way. Eating disorders often develop from BDD, and they may lead to death if the sickness gets out of hand.

What’s most disappointing about modern society is that while celebrities and influencers will promote body positivity, some of them will completely abandon their endorsements and skip meals or cease eating to get to a weight they feel is good. Another contributor to BDD is the popularity of plastic surgery across the world that helps “fix” your problems. Problems - plastic surgeons like to use that word a lot in reference to a body part they can break and then remold into something entirely new, something unrealistic and no longer unique to the patient. In an article from Medical News Today, a decade-long study provides the information that eating disorders across the globe have increased from 3.5% to 7.8% due to the world’s obsession with social media. The problem with social media, while it may be a place to connect for some, is that it often promotes completely unrealistic standards, provides heavily edited posts from most creators, and sometimes even supplies AI-generated images (Geng). In a separate study from Springer Nature, a survey of 1,558 teens from the ages of 16 to 19 in Norway inquired about how social media has a relation to their body image and mental health. 80% (661) of the girls revealed that social media has a direct correlation with how they feel about their appearance and it generally makes them feel worse. The article reported that there is “A clear pattern of associations between photo- and video specific SM [social media] platforms, ED [eating disorder] pathology, internalization of body ideals and perceived pressure…Adolescent girls appeared to be particularly at risk,” (Dahlgren et al.). To clarify, the most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating. There isn’t always a clear reason proven for why eating disorders develop, but social media tends to be one of the main contributors.

To conclude, the amount of pressure put on young girls to conform to society’s expectations of what their bodies should look like is disgraceful. We are programmed to feel ashamed of ourselves when we aren’t skinny or we don’t look like the models on the runways or we eat fast food or we skip a workout. On and on it goes until we can no longer get up in the morning or look in the mirror. Girls will resort to obsessive exercising, strict diets, and skipping meals to achieve what they hope is a model’s figure (model’s are usually unhealthy too, due to the drastic measures they take to maintain skinniness). Based on the data previously stated, this problem isn’t isolated to just Americans, but the entire global population of young women and the situation seems to be escalating. Girls weren’t always allowed to be vocal about the pain they experience from ideals and standards set by the public eye, but we need to be. Something that girls often overlook as they try to achieve visible abs or a thinner waist is that we have many important organs we are storing in our bodies, and it is much more difficult for us to have toned stomach muscles than a boy. We need those organs to give birth to humans later on in life, which is a seriously incredible achievement. Additionally, our bodies change a lot over time, simply because of age, and that’s okay. Age is a part of life and it’s beautiful, which is hard to believe when so many people attempt to reverse it with “treatments” and surgery.

Something to keep in mind is that no one knows what’s going on in the life of the person sitting next to you, so next time you make a comment or a “joke” about eating too much or being fat, think twice and stop talking. One tiny comment from an individual can send someone spiraling, and this can be harmful to not just their mental health, but also their physical health because they may develop or return to an ED, fall into depression, or turn to self-harm. Also, it just hurts to hear others talk about your body type in disgust or judgement because there is not a single person in the world who is allowed to comment about your body but yourself. So, don't skip meals or force yourself through exhausting workouts, because changing yourself for other people will only result in pain - it's not worth it. All bodies are beautiful bodies, and we have to remember to be kind to ourselves as much as we are to the people around us. For those who can’t face their own reflection, please, please, please remember that.

Sources:

Moran, Mark. “Body Dysmorphic Disorder Said to Be Significantly Impairing in Adolescence”, Psychiatric News, May 1, 2024, https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.pn.2024.06.6.12

Geng, Caitlin. “What to know about social media and eating disorders, and when to see a doctor”, Medical News Today, November 28, 2025, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/social-media-and-eating-disorders 

Dahlgren, Camilla Lindvall, Sundgot-Borgen, Christine, Kvalem, Ingela Lundin, Wennersberg, Anne-Louise, Wisting, Line. “Further evidence of the association between social media use, eating disorder pathology and appearance ideals and pressure: a cross-sectional study in Norwegian adolescents”, Springer Nature, February 29, 2024, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40337-024-00992-3