I was 16, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, and feeling this dark cloud that sat over my head like Eeyore for months. I couldn’t place it. I was the skinniest I’d ever been, found a decent best friend that didn’t bully me like the ones from elementary school, and had just started dating a boy who I was crushing on for months. It took me years to figure out who I follow on social media makes a huge difference in our confidence.
When I was 16, I was thin, but not tiny like the popular girls, I wasn’t allowed to wear bikinis ever in my life according to my parents, and I constantly found pictures of models on my feed that my boyfriend had already liked (or in the case of Instagram “loved”). I should’ve been loving my thighs for being muscular and tan. I should’ve been proud that I loved eating fruit. I should’ve loved my genuine smile. Instead, I hated that my thighs only fit into a size 8 pair of jeans and not a size 0, I yelled at myself each time I ate something with sugar even if it was natural sugar, and I stopped smiling to avoid people seeing my double chin or crooked teeth. I eventually hated wearing bathing suits, even just to the pool in my father’s private backyard and stopped wearing shorts and dresses all together.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the accounts I was following kept posting about their workouts in their multimillion dollar homes and how to stay active during quarantine. Just because I was aimlessly scrolling through social media, my mood was taking a huge hit. I started really hating on myself for not going on runs or working out. The people I was staying with also kept making snarky remarks about sleep schedules and eating habits. I decided to stop following any account which made me insecure to read their posts and started following the inspirational ones. Instead of models who photoshop pictures, my feed was filled with people who have lost weight by working hard on their own, mothers who love their stretch marks, plus-size bloggers, and feminist accounts who post encouraging quotes. The quotes helped me realize that during this pandemic, it’s okay to just be alive and functioning, it isn’t a contest on who can look the best at the end. The inspirational people I follow encouraged me to be happy in my own skin and to avoid using food as an emotional tool. While you could have found me curled up in a ball in March, hating on myself, it is now September and you’ll find me working out 4 days a week, loving my healthy homemade meals, and encouraging others to love themselves.
Following the right people made such an impact in my life. Today, we are so focused on social media and how others perceive us that we forget to smile and love ourselves regardless of what others see or think. My happiness has shot up and I encourage others to give it a shot.
Unruly Bodies 
This is so true! social media has became a major thing people turn to, where many people begin to compare themselves to others. From how they look like to how many followers they have, these things can shape many people’s self-esteem. We as a society need to help each other know that we are all unique. There is no “one body type” or “one special trait” to have that can make us models. We are all unique models that have so much potential. Over the past years i’ve learned that when you stop comparing yourself to other people, you tend to find your own worth and this makes you grow and know that you should never settle for anything less than what you deserve.
I completely relate to this. Social media really warps the image you have of yourself and I really believe it’s important to curate a healthy following/feed and make sure to unfollow/mute/block the necessary accounts. I have an interest in weight lifting, but changing who I follow changed my perspective drastically. The people I follow now do it for things like energy and stress relief, no longer for body shaping/trying to change your body to certain unrealistic standards.
I really enjoyed reading this post! It was so refreshing to read an article that wasn’t promoting thinness and being a size 0. I have had my own personal struggles with body image and self-confidence so I appreciate your openness to such a sensitive and vulnerable topic. I really struggled in the beginning of quarantine too and it pushed me to really take a look at who I follow on social media too. I did a huge Instagram cleanse and eliminate any accounts that I knew would send me down into a spiral of negative thoughts about myself. I am so happy to read about all of the progress you’ve made in such a short amount of time. More individuals in our generation need to read this because social media is flooded with accounts that don’t show their real, authentic selves. Seeing more people showing more self-love and body acceptance is exactly what we need to work towards redefining beauty standards. Thanks for sharing!!
And hence the problem with all social media…..we constantly compare ourselves to others. Why am I not as thin as….., as beautiful as…., as athletic as……, as talented as…. ? When I was a child, adult friends of my parents called me Large Linda and my sister Small Sharon to help them remember who was who. I remember thinking I must be huge and wondering why I was not tiny and cute like my younger sister. It was not until I became an adult that I realized I was skinny as a child, not huge. The designation large only dealt with my height as a child, but by that time the desination already defined how I viewed myself. I would like to say that now as a senior adult, my image of myself had changed. That would not be totally true. However, I do not find my value in my size or looks. Like you, I choose to surround myself with people who care about me for who I am on the inside. I read positive books that remind me that happiness does not come from looking good, (my outside) but from the joy I receive by helping and loving others (my inside).