Can Celebrities Shape How We View Our Body?
Aside from entertaining us, celebrities and the media can significantly affect how we perceive our bodies.
Do you believe celebrities live the most glamorous lives? From donning the newest clothes by the best designers to globetrotting to dining at the finest restaurants, they seem to lead a life that many of us aspire to have.
However, it is not just their lifestyle that we find appealing, but also their appearance. Celebrities are often considered the epitome of physical attractiveness, establishing unrealistic beauty standards that many of us strive to attain at any cost. While the thought of achieving celebrity-like beauty may sound appealing, it can really come at a high cost to our overall well-being.
Through this article, we will explore the influence that celebrities have on our body image in addition to understanding some underlying theories that explain its cause along with steps that we can take on an individual and collective level that helps deescalate its negative impacts.
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Do Celebrities Affect Our Body Image?
Our admiration for celebrities has existed since the beginning of the entertainment industry and many times we view them as those that set the standard of beauty. For example, celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Cindy Crawford, Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford have all been considered to be the personification of the “ideal man or woman”. This is where the trouble begins, as such depictions lead to the formation of unrealistic beauty standards against which we compare ourselves, culminating in us being dissatisfied with our bodies.
Studies from the early 1980s document this effect and show us that exposure to these attractive people on television had a significant impact on the self-esteem of the viewer wherein the viewers report feeling depressed.
Even recent studies document a similar effect among people in a different age demographic. A 2014 study found that TV shows such as Desperate Housewives and Cougar Town, which portray ageing women with bodies of younger women, caused their middle-aged female viewers to develop body image discrepancies. Many participants also went on to exhibit symptoms of eating disorders and made stricter food choices, especially around others.
On the other hand, while there is limited research among men, studies have documented that exposure to advertisements containing “ideal men” (those with a lean and muscular physique) resulted in individuals feeling more depressed and dissatisfied with their muscular build.
Over time while this relationship between celebrities and body image has just got stronger, with the level of influence reaching new heights through more trendy mediums i.e. social networking sites, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc.
The content that celebrities upload and circulate can act as one of the triggers resulting in the development of body image issues. Take for instance trends such as ‘fitspiration’ or ‘thinspiration’ which involve sharing content that promotes fitness or thinness among followers. Although they are meant to motivate and inspire followers to take part in a healthier lifestyle, their effects are maladaptive. In reality, these trends reinforce the importance of physical appearance which leads to unhealthy eating and exercise behaviours among their social media followers.
However, the effect is not just restricted to fitness-based posts. Social media and influencers too began to contribute towards setting unrealistic beauty standards which can result in the development of severe eating disorders, but also dissatisfaction with one's body.
It occurs through the circulation of images that have been edited, airbrushed and photoshopped prior to uploading. By presenting themselves as flawless with perfect bodies, hair and skin, celebrities only tend to exacerbate the insecurities held by the audience. For starters, it can make the viewers feel that they are either flawed or not good enough and internalising these feelings can result in lower self-confidence, self-esteem and depression, according to experts.
Not just that, retouching images can also influence viewers to spend large sums of money on cosmetic enhancements with the hope of obtaining the “perfect body”. Candice Walker and her colleagues in their 2019 study found that young women who had prolonged exposure to social media or viewed images of enhanced females reported having a greater desire to undergo cosmetic surgery.
These findings urge us to understand the underlying mechanisms in the relationship between celebrities and our body image in order to effectively reduce the effects they can have on us.
How Can Celebrities Influence Your Body Image?
Having looked at the several ways through which media figures can affect our body image, one may begin to wonder, how this effect persists in the first place. This can be best explained by two theories, the first being social comparison theory and the second being the tripartite model of influence.
As the name suggests social comparison theory, described by Leon Festinger in 1954, explains our drive to determine our value by comparing ourselves to others on certain attributes (e.g. intelligence, physique). Although it sounds easy to suggest that one must try to avoid social comparisons, it is really difficult, especially in today’s day and age where we are flooded with images of celebrities flaunting their ideal physique.
In fact, a survey conducted by Florida House Experience, a healthcare company on a sample of 1000 men and women showed that 87% of women and 65% of men tended to compare themselves to the images they saw on social and traditional media. Within those numbers, 50% of women and 37% of men, tended to compare their bodies in an unfavourable manner.
We tend to use an upward comparison in these scenarios since we perceive the celebrity's appearance to be better than ours. In other words, we use their images to create a benchmark to set body goals for ourselves and take the most extreme measures to look like them. However, this can have detrimental outcomes as it makes individuals feel that they do not meet societal and cultural standards of appearance, thereby resulting in body dissatisfaction.
Working in tandem with social comparison theory is the tripartite model of influence. Proposed by Kevin Thompson and his colleagues in 1999, this theory helps us obtain a holistic understanding of body dissatisfaction due to its sociocultural nature. It basically postulates that there are three factors that contribute towards the development of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders, namely our friends, family and media. In addition to these three traditional factors, researchers suggest that social media too can act as another contributor.
We can observe the influence exerted by media through its portrayal and reinforcement of the “ideal body”. It helped create the narrative that while among women a lean and thin body type was considered ideal, a muscular physique is considered desirable and attractive among men.
According to the model, we as an audience or viewers begin to internalise these notions and engage in appearance comparisons thereby putting us at a greater risk of experiencing dissatisfaction with our bodies or even developing eating disorder symptomology.
Having seen how the influence on our body image runs deep with the help of social comparison theory and the tripartite model of influence, it becomes crucial for us to also look at some steps we can take to protect it.
What Can You Do To Protect Your Body Image?
Mindlessly scrolling through your social media feed definitely is a fun activity. At times going through the profiles of celebrities and influencers can also provide us with some much-needed motivation and inspiration. But it is important for us to also acknowledge how exposure to such content can affect our mental well-being and take steps to minimise any damage taking place. In this section, we will look at what you can do to counteract the effect of celebrities and media on your body image, from both an individual and communal level.
On an individual level, one of the first steps you can take is to limit the time you spend on your favourite social media platforms. I know that sounds like something your mom would tell you, but hear me out because this is supported by research.
In their 2014 study, Helen Thai and her colleagues from McGill University found that reducing the time spent on social media to just one hour a day helped both adolescents and young adults (with emotional distress) feel better about their appearance and their weight.
In addition to this, as you scroll through your feed, begin to pay attention to how different images make you feel. Follow those accounts that lift your spirits and unfollow those that make you feel bad about yourself.
From a societal perspective, we need to take greater efforts in making individuals of various body types feel included and less conscious of themselves. We can begin by encouraging influencers, celebrities and brands can include disclaimers such as “ This image has been digitally altered” in the social media captions. It was purported to inform the audience that the image they are viewing is not realistic and thus does not depict a real person. Consequently, when you view images on social media, the presence of this disclaimer can put you one step closer to protecting your self-image.
As of today countries, such as Norway, France and Israel have passed legislation making it mandatory for individuals to disclose if images have been photoshopped or not. Although this sounds like a great step, there has been a lot of contention regarding the efficacy of this in the research community. Some studies indicate that the presence or lack of disclaimers with attractive images led to similar amounts of reduction in one’s body image. There however is a greater need for studies in this arena before we can reach any conclusions regarding its efficacy.
Furthermore, brands too can work towards incorporating individuals from different ages, and body types as a part of their campaigns. This can not only help in making individuals feel represented but also helps in nurturing an inclusive idea around beauty and appearance.
Celebrities exert their influence on various aspects of our lives right from our consumption patterns to health. However one of their most prominent impacts is on our body image. Through the narrative of an “ideal body”, media and celebrities contribute towards nurturing body dissatisfaction among their audience. This can consequently impact other domains of their lives significantly. It is therefore important for us as viewers to be vigilant of the content we observe on traditional and social media, particularly when it comes to celebrity appearance.
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