As social media presence has increased dramatically and young people have started to use social media more regularly at an early age, this has clearly started to have an impact on young people's self-esteem as they are impressionable and the depiction of ‘beauty’ they are exposed to massively moulds the thoughts about their own bodies and self-worth. The constant portrayal of unrealistic beauty standards online creates an ‘ideal’ image in which they think they should look, as well as forcing people to believe that self-worth is tied to your looks. Whilst scrolling through social media, you are exposed to multiple images and videos of people who look ‘perfect’ and you start to believe this is how you should look, this causes comparisons and this has a negative influence of body image making you believe you aren't good enough- when in reality the pictures seen online are posed with good lighting and are edited so no matter how much you want to look like these people their posts are not a realistic portrayal of themselves . Constantly seeing other people looking or living ‘perfectly’ makes you criticise yourself and your own life when social media posts are only showing us what the creator wants us to see rather than the reality of their lives.

Recently the body positive movement has started to grow online which helps to show the reality of bodies and tries to normalise normal things that people have that have been deemed as negative in the eyes of Western beauty standards. This movement has helped many feel less isolated and less ostracised from society as well as showing the reality behind peoples posts online.

However, some people may argue that this body positive movement is still focused on the appearance of people’s bodies which feeds into the belief that the appearance of your body determines your self-worth rather than your personality, character strengths and your achievements.

The unrealistic beauty standard presented on social media platforms has caused an increase in body dysmorphia and eating disorders due to the social pressures that cause people to internalise the ‘ideal’ image they need to embody in order to feel worthy. We need to make an effort to change this beauty standard making people realise that no matter how your body looks you are still worthy and that the things your body allows you to do will be worth more than the appearance of your body and gradually this could help our society focus more on the meaningful things rather than the appearance of our bodies in comparison to others.