Social media and men’s body image
Project made by: Rosalie Kock and Dairah Castricum

There are a lot of people using social media platforms and we all know that those platforms could have a lot of impact on the body image and mental health of teenagers. Most people think that those teenagers are only girls but we don’t think so. In this project we are going to have a look about social media and men’s body image.

According to an article from inverse it became clear that teenage girls are susceptible to negative messaging about their body images but they also found out that teenage boys and men are also very vulnerable for the things men see on social media. The insecurities of men are less discussed because the self-perception of men manifests different than in women. Social media could have a negative effect on the body image of men and women.

so many people are on social media. Social media can give a negative affect of body image because of a “perfect” body type. Most of the time the bodies you see online are fake, they are photoshopped or something like that.

People are scrolling the whole time on social media, seeing other “perfect” bodies online it can make you insecure and it will impact not only your sight of your body but also your mental health.

Social media are just platform were people will show their bodies most of the time, so it is difficult for people to avoid the “perfect” bodies. Some people are insecure because of the body image on social media and will stop eating or will start eating more what can cost an eating disorder.

Everybody is comparing theirselves to social media bodies even though they are not even real. If you see celebrities in real life they will look a lot most like you than the photos. No one tells their followers that their body is not really only because if they do they then have no fan and their fame will stop.

We always talk about girls and women who are insecure about their body but men will never come in the spotlight in this perspective. They can not even show their emotion in real life because then they are weak. They also can not talk about their insecurities because they are not insecure like women. But that is so not true men have feelings too and really can be insecure.

The insecurities by women are most of the time about how slim they are or that they need to look like hourglass, so being really curved. By men is most of the time an insecurity about how muscular they are. Most men are shown as very muscular people or even as bodybuilder on social media. They also face the trend of lean bodies.

That is the part what men makes them insecure. They will train more and eat less. That can lead to an eating disorder or a bad health. It can also caused them mental health problems.

The ideals of the male’s body has drastically changed over the last few years. In the last two decades is that ideal of a muscular body with well-trained shoulders, a good chest, big arm muscles and a sixpack increased. There were always male’s who wanted this but it became so important to everybody that it makes people insecure when they do not have the perfect body.

Health writer Sarah Berry believes that this something you see in movies too. She thinks that there is a lot of ‘muscularity’ within the American movies. The movie X-man came out in the year 2000 with the very muscular actor Hugh Jackman. After that there came superhero films with characters like Thor, Superman and Black Panther. In those movies is the superhero most of the time very big and muscular with a lot of physical activity in the movie.

Maybe is it because these figures are just in fiction films but in real life these things can make teenage boys very insecure en it does have influence on their body image. A recent studie published by Eating and Weight Disorders have looked at the relation between screen time and muscle dysmorphia. Muscle dysmorphia is a type of dysmorphia where someone thinks that he/she is a very weak person while they are fit an healthy.

Muscle dysmorphia can lead to very intensive activities and dieting. It also can lead through constant comparisons, mirror checking everywhere and sometimes people are going to use anabolic steroids which have an unnatural impact to your body. Researchers found out that social media and muscle dysmorphia were associated with each other. Especially when it are boys/young men’s

This is our documentary about this project: