According to a pre-pandemic study, one in two young people would have body dissatisfaction, in particular because of social media which have a great power of influence on adolescents.
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More and more young people are developing physical complexes that they want to change.
Exposure to social networks and their perfect-looking content only makes the phenomenon worse.
“Young people will tend to use these filters to get closer to the norm, so that’s sure to take us away from all that is bodily acceptance, bodily diversity. It is very difficult to be in diversity when the only content that I see or in the content with which I will compare myself, it is a model of beauty which is inaccessible”, indicated Francisca Bourbeau, health professional and researcher of the Loricorps research chair at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières.
Minor surgeries and procedures are closer to us than ever.
Content creator Alexandra Hould believes it’s up to healthcare professionals to promote it, not influencers.
“The more influence you have, the more people cling to it and it can be a distorted image by social networks too. I’ve heard someone say they’ve done such surgery and a week later the doctor was overwhelmed. He had like 700 requests for the same surgery. It’s a bit biased because every body is unique, every experience is unique,” she reported.
Before the pandemic, 45% of girls aged 9 and over lived with body dissatisfaction.
Data that has certainly increased since the appearance of videoconferencing.
“When you look in the mirror, it’s often a choice. But with Zoom, people were constantly confronted with their own body image all day long and that can lead people to see their body as an object, ”added Ms. Bourbeau.