Students Feel Media Pressure for Perfect ‘Instagrammable’ Life

UW-Milwaukee students reported feeling pressure from the media to project a certain, often unattainable image of themselves and to live and look the part for a perfect “Instagrammable” life in an open discussion on March 1 as part of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

Senior Maddie Kane shared her thoughts on the influence of the media and the pressure she feels.

“I think that the big idea of the media and even social media is really affecting people, specifically women, but men too, to look a certain way, act a certain way present themselves a certain way, and to post this many times a day and at these times of day,” Kane said. “It’s just a lot to handle to keep up an image in our society that doesn’t really equate to anything or mean anything except to a really small percentage of people who make a lot of money from it. It’s really scary that people fall victim to that so often.”

A roomful of about 35 undergraduate and graduate students echoed similar sentiments after viewing the documentary “America the Beautiful,” which explores issues related to female body image. The event was sponsored by the UWM Counseling Services, the UWM Psychology Clinic, and Aloria Health, which is a new eating disorder treatment center in downtown Milwaukee and only the second in the greater-metropolitan area, following Aurora Psychiatric Hospital in Wauwatosa.

The documentary was intentionally chosen to serve as a contrast from this year’s theme of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, “Let’s Get Real,” and promote discussion, according to Stacey Nye, the director of the psychology clinic at UWM, whose main area of expertise is in eating disorders. The documentary explored everything from child models to plastic surgery, dangerous cosmetics, and the lengths people will go to, especially women, while chasing the seemingly unattainable ideals of perfection.

“The really harmful part about Instagram is the people who are famous for looking a certain way and having all of these nice filtered photos,” said one student who preferred to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the topic. “I think a lot of people don’t realize how constructed that is, that they’re selling products to you, and that they work really hard on this one picture. It looks like this is her lifestyle. Her bath always has flowers in it and she always has a beautiful smoothie for every meal. It’s just not realistic, but it looks real.”

“You don’t have to have plastic surgery or look a certain way or fit into this really narrow idea of what is acceptable and beautiful,” Nye said.

Another key component of the discussion revolved around eating disorders and the associated difficulties and complexities with aiding a loved-one in getting help and reaching a diagnosis.

According to Heather Henrickson, the senior psychologist at the Norris Health Center, the first and most important step to helping someone on the road to recovery is to establish that you care about them.

When Nye posed the question to students on whether or not they had approached struggling with a possible eating disorder successfully or unsuccessfully, another student responded: “My cousin. I don’t know if it was a combination of anorexia and bulimia, but what I learned from it was that you really can’t approach anybody head on. They will deny it . . . It’s more about trying to maintain control in their life, at least that’s what the issue became with her. It’s something that manifests into this eating disorder that usually starts with a control issue.”

“You can say ‘Hey, I care about you. I’m worried about you. I think you need some help. I’ll go with you. Let’s think about this together,’ You can’t really make someone [seek help], so that’s really hard, so you do what you can and you stick around for someone and eventually, hopefully, they’ll be able to take you advice,” Nye said.

Henrickson listed some patterns including hiding food, restricting and tracking caloric intake, eating ritualistically and on a very rigid schedule, cutting food into tiny pieces, and pushing food around on the plate as possible warning signs of an eating disorder. She warned the audience that “appearance can really be a misleading factor to look for,” and that diagnoses are best left to a team of trained professionals.

In addition, free online eating disorder screenings were provided at the beginning of the event.