In today’s continually body-conscious media, celebrities are often presented in a manner that provides narrow definitions of what beauty entails. Photos of exceptionally ‘perfect’ and impossibly attractive celebrities are all around us, from billboards to shop windows to social media such as Instagram. Why is it that the ‘latest look’ is often nowhere close to what people actually look like in the real world? Trends are always evolving but people’s desires, goals, and anxiety are everlasting.

Celebrities receive outrageous public attention and often represent the embodiment of media cultural beauty ideals (Brown & Tiggemann). Online platforms have been used by celebrities such as Demi Lovato and Kesha to disclose their eating disorders (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021).  They have also been used to endorse the latest body image whims, such as the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge and Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Elimination Diet”. The existing beauty ideal for women emphasizes thinness with the continuous exposure to celebrities with an unattainable thin ideal, leading to increased body dissatisfaction (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021).

Body dissatisfaction has several negative consequences for physical and mental health, including depression and eating disorders (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021). Although sociocultural factors are involved, mass media is argued to be the most powerful influence. There has been an extensive body of research that links exposure to thin idealized media imagery and body dissatisfaction. Some examples include a study by Spettigue and Anderson (2004) which explored the role of media in the development, maintenance, prevention, and treatment of eating disorders. Another study by Apeagyei (2009) investigated how the impulse to imitate celebrities and remain fashionable has been the ongoing focus of consumers, as some try to fit into the socially constructed (i.e. something that exists as an outcome of human interaction but is not an existing reality) ideal body type. However, this research has mainly focused on fashion models rather than celebrities.

Celebrities as opposed to fashion models are not anonymous but quite famous. Their personal lives are pervasive and easily accessible. The outcome is people being deeply involved in their personal lives and imagining themselves as having a special relationship with them, known as celebrity worship (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021). Previous research has found that individuals who score high on celebrity-worship scales are more prone to have body image issues, eating disorder attitudes (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021), seek cosmetic surgery (Sansone & Sansone, 2014), have a personality trait depicted by sensation-seeking (i.e., people who chase novel, complex, and intense sensations, love experience for its own sake, and may take risks to pursue those experiences; Patoine, 2019), cognitive rigidity (i.e., difficulty changing mental sets; Coplan, 2016), identity diffusion (i.e., when an individual does not have an established identity nor is actively searching for one; Fraser-Thill, 2019) and poor interpersonal boundaries (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021).

There has been a rise in Internet celebrities who become exclusively famous through the internet and social media, known as “Influencers” or “Instacelebs” on Instagram (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021 . As of May 2019, six out of the ten most followed Instagram accounts were Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Beyonce, and Taylor Swift, who are characterized as being thin, toned, and attractive female celebrities (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021). While the other three accounts were of toned and muscular male celebrities – Cristiano Ronaldo, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Leo Messi. These celebrities are often publicized as providing the assets of “thinspiration” and “fitspiration” which are combinations of the words thin/fit and inspiration, for individuals to aspire to a flawless body type, including the encouragement for weight loss (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021). This is especially prominent among adolescents and adults who reported that celebrities significantly influenced their body image ideals, that celebrities encourage thinness, and they aspired to look like them i.e., thinspiration (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021).

The unreal “reality” portrayed on Instagram gives people a false perception of an unobtainable look (Narins, 2017). Pictures and selfies are carefully edited and filtered which make them look “perfect” and have many people spiral into a virtual world of unease and self-consciousness (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021). Good angles, good lighting, and good posing all contribute to this flawed reality. Hence, it is important to note that what we see on Instagram and other social media platforms does not capture the full reality.

Moreover, women’s perceptions of their body size and the perceived body size of their favorite celebrity were related to disordered eating measures (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021). Sociocultural pressure from celebrities on social media also persuades men to have more muscular and toned bodies leading to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes among them as well (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021).

Social comparison theory is used to explain the consequences of media exposure on body image and eating behaviours (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021). The theory argues that humans have an inherent drive to compare themselves to others to make appraisals about their abilities and opinions. Celebrities present as the romanticized objective, making women feel undesirable about themselves and their bodies as they fail to achieve the standard (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021). Nonetheless, cultural norms of thinness are so deep-rooted in society that women are forced to make comparisons for the fear of being judged.

Typically, the influence of media on body image is similar across cultures, though there are some discrepancies among non-Western women (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021). African-American women in the USA were unlikely to match their body image to the thin ideal standard fostered by Caucasian western celebrities. Likewise, Mexican-American women compared their bodies to curvy Latina celebrities, not thin Caucasian celebrities. Conversely, women in Lebanon reported comparing their appearance to western celebrities (Brown & Tiggemann, 2021).

Overall, exposure to celebrity images, comparison with celebrities, and celebrity worship have damaging and maladaptive outcomes across different age ranges (Malacoff, 2019). Some ways to combat these issues include:

Media literacy. Educating yourself about how celebrity images are manipulated in spite of hiring personal trainers, make-up artists, personal dieticians, etc. Therefore, it is impractical to try to meet that ideal as a normal human.

Keep social media at a distance. Be aware and take notice of your feelings when viewing celebrities on social media. Observe that you can humbly appreciate the other person without trying to act on it or to ‘be’ it.

Put an end to shaming. Terminate the shaming cycle by not negatively evaluating yourself or others. Try to stop describing yourself in unkind or critical terms.

Reform cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance entails when an individual experiences contradictory thoughts, beliefs, ideas, or values. It is a beneficial way to obstruct body dissatisfaction for example, by making note of what things you like about your body instead of things you hate.

References

Aparicio-Martinez, P., Perea-Moreno, A. J., Martinez-Jimenez, M. P., Redel-Macías, M. D., Pagliari, C., & Vaquero-Abellan, M. (2019). Social Media, thin-Ideal, body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes: An exploratory analysis. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(21), 4177. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214177

Brown, Z., & Tiggemann, M. (2021). Celebrity influence on body image and eating disorders: A review. Journal of Health Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105320988312

Coplan, D. J. (2016, August 1). Cognitive Rigidity: The 8-Ball from Hell. Psychology Today. 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/making-sense-autistic-spectrum-disorders/201608/cognitive-rigidity-the-8-ball-hell.

Fraser-Thill, R. (2019, September 18). How Identity Diffusion Allows Tweens to Find Themselves. Verywell Family. https://www.verywellfamily.com/identity-diffusion-3288023#:~:text=Identity%20diffusion%20is%20one%20step,is%20actively%20searching%20for%20one. 

Malacoff , J. (2019, May 1). Following Your Favorite Celebs On Instagram Might Be Bad for Your Mental Health. Shape. https://www.shape.com/lifestyle/mind-and-body/celebrity-social-media-affects-mental-health-body-image#:~:text=The%20effect%20of%20viewing%20celebrity,of%20thin%20celebrities%20or%20models.&text=Another%20study%20showed%20that%20posting%20selfies%20made%20women%20immediately%20feel%20anxious. 

Narins, E. (2018, March 16). 7 Poses That Make Instagram Stars Look Unreal, Modeled By Iskra Lawrence. Cosmopolitan. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/a12483774/instagram-illusions/. 

Patoine, B. (2019, April 18). Desperately Seeking Sensation. Dana Foundation. https://www.dana.org/article/desperately-seeking-sensation/. 

Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2014). “I’m Your Number One Fan”- A Clinical Look at Celebrity Worship. Innovations in clinical neuroscience, 11(1-2), 39–43. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960781/