Together We Can Fight the Thin Ideal

Nowadays, everyone we know seems to be connected with each other through social media. But can excessive amounts of it bring negative aspects such as body image issues? After all, everything has a good side and a bad side. According to the article "How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers" by Rachel Emhke, "... a  survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health asked 14-24 year olds in the UK how social media platforms impacted their health and wellbeing. The survey results found that Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all led to increased feelings of [...] poor body image." Most of the time this has has to do with who you follow and how you interact on these social media  platforms, so the best way to avoid this is by not following people who promote and set unrealistic standards of "beauty". This is not to say social media is bad and we should all cut it out of our lives, because to be fair, social media is a powerful platform where you can reach thousands of people to share ideas and raise awareness. Instead, let's raise awareness among teens and teach them how to be smart consumers of social media.