Mental Health and the Beauty Industry

The beauty industry has been heavily criticized for perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards and the detriment it has on mental health. The way an individual perceives beauty and attractiveness is influenced by many biologic, social, psychologic, and cultural aspects. Research has also shown that beauty preferences and the ability to classify a person as being attractive or not are shaped by rudimentary cognitive processes that develop early on in life. Physical features that affect a person’s beauty categorization are facial averageness and symmetry, along with skin homogeneity (Maymone et al, 2019). With the advent of social media, beauty standards are ever-changing. The current cultural ideals of beauty and attractiveness have become unattainable for many people, increasing the prevalence of body image issues in society (Gillen and Markey, 2022). This writeup will explore how social media affects beauty standards and how that influences mental health, as well as mental health and its links to the cosmetics industry.      Social media platforms, specifically ones popular among younger people such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat have contributed to the multitude of mental health issues plaguing the younger generation today. Social comparison, which has risen because of social media, has been seen to increase colorism and mental health issues (Sharma, Sanghvi, and Churi, 2022). The rates of body image issues and eating disorders have increased exponentially among young people, especially women, as a result of the unrealistic beauty standards and imagery they have been exposed to through social media. Young women feel pressured to be thin and if not, to incorporate weight control behaviors into their lifestyle so as to refrain from being perceived as “unhealthy” (Ando et al, 2021). During the lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, female students felt a significant surge in media pressures and even internalized thin/low body fat beauty ideals (Baceviciene and Jankauskiene, 2021). Thin-ideal internalization and the strive for thinness, such as that seen on social media, have been associated with eating disorders. People tend to have negative attitudes towards overweight bodies, which has also been seen to be related to eating disorder symptoms (Dodd et al, 2017). Along with eating disorders, other mental health consequences due to the exposure of unattainable beauty standards include social anxiety, body dysmorphic disorder, panic disorder, depression, low self-esteem, self-harm, as well as suicidal feelings (Danylova, 2020).      In recent years, social media has been flooded with images of the hourglass body shape, like that of social media influencer Kim Kardashian. Research done on undergraduate women has indicated that people who idealize the hourglass body shape are more likely to have clinical levels of disordered eating (Hernandez et al, 2021). That being said, social media has also seen a rise in health and wellness trends and has morphed into an informal source of health education. This trend encourages people to have the idealized bodies shown on social media, and also promotes incorporating healthy food, diets, and exercise in everyday life (Marks et al, 2020). A trend that has recently emerged is that of “fitspiration”, which has which has been criticized for developing exercise addiction, body dissatisfaction, and appearance-related anxiety or depressive symptoms. It has also been seen to negatively influence self-esteem issues as well as the excessive control of eating habits in young people (Cataldo et al, 2021). Research has also found that exposure to fitspiration posts also increased appearance anxiety in young people during lockdown (Cataldo et al, 2022).      While triggering anxiety and disordered eating symptoms in people, the fitspiration trend has also triggered muscle dysmorphia in young men. Muscle dysmorphia is the incessant preoccupation that a person’s body is not as muscular or lean as it is supposed to be. Studies have shown muscle dysmorphia has similar psychosocial factors that contribute to eating disorders (Begin et al, 2019). Previous research has indicated that masculine norms have a directly proportional relationship to muscle dysmorphia symptoms, but recent literature shows a more bidirectional longitudinal relationship. The ‘power over women’ and ‘winning’ aspects of masculine norms were linked to decreased muscle dysmorphia symptoms, while the ‘violence’ aspect predicted increased symptoms. Muscle dysmorphia symptoms were also seen to prognosticate an increase in the ‘emotional control’ and ‘winning’ aspects of masculine norms (Grunewald et al, 2022). Masculinity discrepancy stress and emotion dysregulation are factors that have contributed to men exhibiting muscle dysmorphia symptoms (Cumnningham et al, 2020). Bodybuilders, powerlifters, and steroid users have been seen to have a significant impact on the presence of muscle dysmorphia, orthorexia nervosa, and obsessive-compulsiveness (MacPhail and Oberle, 2022).      Along with the fitspiration trend, the body positivity movement has also gained traction in recent years and is one that encourages accepting diverse body sizes and appearances, thus challenging the unrealistic beauty standards perpetuated through social media. Body-positive pictures posted on social media have been seen to improve positive body images in young people. That being said, certain body-positive images that were sexualized and digitally modified, have been proven to negate the positive effect of the movement and reinforce traditional beauty standards of being thin (Vendemia et al, 2021).  As with any social media trend, the body positivity one is not without criticism. Though social media has seen a surge in people advocating for body positivity, many still believe this messaging is limited to celebrities and high-profile social media influencers (Ando et al, 2021). Other criticisms of the movement are that some body-positivity posts on Instagram had contradicting messages while others encouraged weight loss and glorified being thin (Lazuka et al, 2020).      As seen above, idealistic beauty standards have caused a significant amount of psychological distress among social media users, particularly young people, along with a distortion of their self-image. Sharing and engaging with images on social media was found to be linked to internalization of these beauty standards and appearance comparison. Along with that, photo-editing behavior has also been proven to intensify women’s internalization of unrealistic body ideals (Lee and Lee, 2021). Research has found that the mental health outcomes of idealistic beauty standards have led to an increase in cosmetic surgery among young women (Bonell et al, 2021). Mental and emotional health, cosmetic appearance, physical health, work or school success, and social well-being were cited as some reasons for undergoing cosmetic treatments. People also mentioned how these treatments allow them to stop being self-conscious, increases their self-confidence, and also makes them seem capable at work (Waldman et al, 2019). Many young people edit their pictures (photo manipulation) before posting them on social media. Research has indicated that this can predict attitudes and intentions towards cosmetic procedures (Beos et al, 2021).      While the unattainable beauty ideals perpetuated through social media have been proven to have negative effects on mental health, mental health has also been seen to have an impact on the beauty industry. As mentioned earlier, there are an increasing number of young people who have developed body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) due to the pressures of social media. Alarming research has shown that suicidality rates in BDD patients is higher than that of patients with other psychiatric illnesses (Hogan et al, 2020). Studies have found that a lot of people who have BDD tend to receive cosmetic treatments to fix their perceived flaws in their physical appearance. However, undergoing cosmetic treatment rarely alleviates BDD symptoms (Bowyer et al, 2016). In fact, some studies have found that people with BDD often experience unfavorable cosmetic treatment outcomes (Hogan et al, 2020). Medical professionals should screen patients undergoing cosmetic treatments for BDD, as being treated for their disorder through therapy would be more beneficial to these people.      In conclusion, the beauty ideals perpetuated by social media have been shown to have insidious effects on the mental health of young people, specifically women. The internalization of unhealthy beauty standards has increased the development of eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder, muscle dysmorphia, and young people undergoing cosmetic treatments as well. Though this can increase self-confidence and body satisfaction among people who undergo these treatments, it does not improve symptoms for BDD patients.  

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