The look of models like Bella Hadid and bodies like Kim Kardashian, have caused young girls to take drastic health measures.
According to cosmetic professionals, Bella Hadid is the most beautiful woman in the world, being voted as model of the year multiple times in a row. She’s become one of the most well known models of the decade to young girls. Consequently, however, she has also raised issues with young girls.
Due to all these pressures that young girls and boys face, they feel the need to follow these strict and unruly standards social media and the internet feed us. Since 2018, the rate of eating disorders have increased by 3.4% to 7.8%, according to the ANAD (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders). Eating disorders affect 9% of the world, and we see higher numbers in young girls and women between the ages of 12-25. This is mostly caused by the narrative of being perfect and wanting to be beautiful. The Bella Hadid image is what many teen girls and women strive for. To be always seen with the latest fashion trends and always with an amazing body
The average size range in the U.S is a size 18-20, as stated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. When you walk into a store, you’ll see that only some stores care sizes 8-16 and with most sizes ranging from 000-4. This makes women and young girls feel low about themselves, as if they aren’t taking care of their bodies, when in reality they are perfectly fine and healthy.
Due to the success of models like Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner, in recent years the popularity of dieting and gym culture has risen. You’ll see that most women want that Bella Hadid body or that Jayda Wayda waist and booty.
Last year a video of Yolanda Hadid, mother of Bella and Gigi Hadid, surfaced from 2014 and went viral as Yolanda Hadid had answered the phone after surgery. Yolanda Hadid answered the phone to her teenage daughter, Gigi Hadid, to “have a couple of almonds and chew them really well,” after Gigi had said “I’m feeling really weak. I had, like, half an almond.”
The video went viral overnight and Yolanda Hadid was titled as The Almond Mom by the entire internet. People left comments under the TikTok post, saying “Now I know why her daughters are so skinny,” and “on my way to buy a jar of almonds.” But what many people don’t know is that both of the girls suffer from Lyme disease and the video was over-exaggerated.
Bella Hadid has been taking a break from modeling due to her Lyme disease, which she was diagnosed with in 2012, and has struggled with for the past 10 years. According to Penn Medical, “Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that is spread to humans from the bite of the deer tick.” And many like Bella face chronic symptoms such as “profound fatigue, pain, and/or cognitive impairment,” stated Columbia-Lyme. One of the biggest factors of Lyme disease is that it can cause weight loss or gain.
Bella has been very open with her disease since diagnosis, saying in an Instagram post, “Living in this state, worsening with time and work while trying to make myself, my family and the people who support me, proud, had taken a toll on me in ways I can’t really explain.”.
But yet this hasn’t stopped young girls and women from wanting that heroin-chic image. Since the rise of the super model image back in the 1990s, the image of a perfect woman has always been seen as thin and lifeless. Models like Kate Moss took this image into popularity, with her famous catchphrase, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” which was a phrase my mom would always say to me when I was young.
Images like this are fed to young girls by their family, and fed to women by the media and the male gaze. It’s like we can’t escape a society where we are constantly berating our bodies, instead of feeding them and making them stronger.
This is with the acceptance of one of the most popular surges in the U.S., the BBL (brazilian butt lift). The small waist and big bum has also become an iconic image. With the lights of Kim Kardashian and Cardi B, many women want that figure of a small waist and big bum.
According to Medpage Today, they say that in a BBL procedure, “The fat can travel via the bloodstream to the heart and lungs, and deaths from such a pulmonary fat embolism can occur within hours of the procedure, or even on the operating table.” But this still hasn’t stopped young girls and women from wanting one. WebMed states that in 2020, doctors performed 21,823 BBLs, and that the number keeps on growing every year.
As someone with a petite body figure, I find myself wanting to be skinnier or wanting a bigger bum and chest, and it’s like I’m gambling with myself. I feel like the images I see on social media make me feel like my body will never be the way I want it, and everyday I find a new insecurity I’d like to change.
Here in the U.S., there aren’t many extreme challenges like there might be in China, where young girls will only feel skinny enough when they fit into children’s clothing or fit a coin in their collarbone. I and many others still feel the pressure of constantly wanting to please ourselves and others by looking like the model in the magazine.
It takes a toll on my mental health, and girls like me around the world too, always feeling the need to be beautiful. According to Biomedcentral, “enhance connection, increase self-esteem, and improve a sense of belonging.” But it can also raise concerns that social media may lead to body image dissatisfaction. Though most of the images online are photoshopped or touched up, social media causes 13-66% of mental health issues, because many young girls don’t know those images aren’t real.
No matter how much we say we love ourselves, and try to spread positivity, in the back of your head, there’s always the image of being better. If we don’t show the reality and bring awareness to the matter, we won’t see a decrease in poor mental health, and the unhealthy standards we’re making for our future women strive for.
