Several Steps Back: Body Image - The Devil Came Back

In 2010 a study was done by Marika Tiggemann and Jessica Miller titled "The Internet and Adolescent Girls’ Weight Satisfaction and Drive for Thinness."

The title is self-explanatory. The study sampled 156 adolescent students from Australia, having them complete a questionnaire on their exposure to the internet and their perceptions on female beauty and body image. The results were disheartening. To quote the study: "Regression analyses indicated that the effects of magazines and Internet exposure were mediated by internalization and appearance comparison. It was concluded that the Internet represents a powerful sociocultural influence on young women’s lives."

In other words: the plague of body dysmorphic disorder, an issue that was only recently crusaded against in the realms of old media and magazines, has infected the internet as well.

The trouble here is not that body dysmorphia caused by media exposure is a persisting issue. It's fairly common knowledge that an obsession with body-aesthetics is an intimate part of today's media-infused culture. The danger is the new source of weight obsession: the internet.

Viewing mass media is a much more passive experience than web browsing. The negative influences of ads, magazines, and television can be countered by placing positive media right along-side it. But when it comes to the internet, the web surfer is a very active information consumer. An adolescent may expose him or herself to whatever negative imagery of misinformation they wish, and can even circumvent any attempts at informing or countering the negative stimuli entirely. In Tiggemann and Miller's study, there was found to be a correlation between negative body image and internet exposure, but not television viewing.

What is clear, then, is that this issue of body image isn't simply a case of the dead coming back. This is an entirely new abomination. To counter this new insurgence of anorexic culture, awareness organizations and support groups will have to establish a sharp presence on the internet. But the thin-ideal culture has already settled in, and its exorcism will be a very long, difficult process.