Misusing Social Media

First off, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to anyone who voted for Inlet Sound in CBC's Searchlight competition. Unfortunately, they didn't make it to the national rounds, but they're not too broken up over it. They just left for a tour of the east coast and they know there are always other opportunities :)

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**Just a warning that some of the slogans and images in this post may be triggering, so proceed with caution**

Today I want to bitch write about a topic that has been bothering me. Lots of you have written great posts about disordered, obsessive and negative behaviours being glorified on healthy living blogs. Amanda recently wrote a great post about the effect that people posting their workout time and calories burned can have on their readers and I 100% agree that those kinds of posts can have a negative effect on people by making them feel inadequate or encouraging them to obsess over calories.

I have read many great posts with similar topics, but I want to talk about at a newer culprit today: instagram.

I have become a big fan of instagram lately (I don't have a ton of pictures up yet but feel free to follow me @devhardy). It is fun to look at people's pictures and I enjoy a lot of the posts from you HLB bloggers out there. However, I find that it has also become a dumping ground for some of the most negative and triggering aspects of blogs that are harmful to some people.

**Let me just say that I am not trying to be offensive to anyone. I am not singling anybody out or putting anybody down. I realize that I am not perfect. I try to write with honesty and integrity on my blog, and while I sometimes still have disordered thoughts, I try to bring these to light, rather than disguise them as healthy**

I have had to unfollow a number of people on instagram because I find their pictures triggering to me. One popular trend is to post progress pics of your body, and that alone can spark comparison. The worst use of these pictures is by the girls who post pictures of their ridiculously chiseled abs with captions like, "This is me after my cheat meal. I'm soooo bloated, where did my abs go??"

Since when did missing a workout become worse than
deeply hurting someone important to you?

Really? As if your picture didn't make most girls feel inadequate enough, now you have to point out the fact that you don't think you look tight enough? Not cool! I'm also not entirely sure where this trend of posting pictures of yourself in your underwear came from. I don't know about you folks, but I'm fairly selective about who gets to see me in my underwear and putting it up on instagram would just take all of the mystery away.

"Motivational" slogans seem to be popular posts as well. However, I have seen a number of harmful ones, including:

   "Be the girl you were too lazy to be yesterday."

   "To grow the gap between my arms and waist..."

   "Unless you puke, faint or die, keep going."

   "Comment a food and I won't eat it for a month."

   "Will never be the fat friend again."

   "Whoever snuck the 's' into 'fast food' was very clever."

   "Get up you fat piece of shit." (A screenshot of someone's iPhone alarm)

   "Self-control = success"

   "Just remember, in 20 seconds that junk food will be gone, the taste will be over and all that will be
   left is regret, lust like the last time."

   "You can't expect to look like a million bucks if you eat from the dollar menu."

   "The best ab workout is walking; walking away from the kitchen."

   "Your workout is my warm-up."

This kind of slogan just makes people feel lazy and inadequate,
no matter how healthy their lifestyles are.

To me, many of these are incredibly demeaning. They make people feel worthless for eating junk food, having extra weight or not working out as intensely as others. There is nothing wrong with indulging every so often, skipping a work out or having thighs that touch. These slogans are not motivational or true and no one should be made to feel that they have to live up to other peoples' standards of what is "healthy".

I even saw one image where the girl who posted it said that she was sooo hungry, but that she had to go to bed instead of thinking about food because she had already had her final meal for that day and she "couldn't" eat more. I don't know about you, but I can't even sleep when I'm hungry, so this would be disastrous for me on so many levels.

Along with these go the numerous disordered hashtags, like:

   #teamnodaysoff

   #thighgap

   #thinspo

   #skinny

   #excersize

   #flatstomach

   #iamfat

   #dontbeafatty

   #thinisin

I can't be the only one who sees the negativity in this. I mean, why is "thigh gap" a hashtag?? To me, that is something that should never be strived for and certainly not something that others should be motivated to strive for with endless pictures of non-touching thighs.

I can't believe this kind of thing exists. No, just no.

I haven't even gotten to some of the food pics yet. These need to be taken with a grain of salt, because pictures can sometimes skew portion sizes and you don't know what else that person has (or hasn't) been eating. However, seeing pictures of someone putting their salad on a food scale, or reading captions in which the writer expresses regret for having eaten something they "shouldn't have." Just sparks comparison and negative feelings.

If you want to eat a cupcake and post a picture, go for it! However, please don't write underneath that you're a fat loser for doing so; it just makes all of us other cupcake-eaters out there feel inadequate.

Now that I have had my little rant, I just want to say that most people I follow on IG don't fall into these categories. I get lots of meal and snack ideas from the pictures and I love being able to keep up with many of my favourite bloggers even when I don't have time to read their blogs. Many of you post things that are actually very positive and motivate others to lead healthy lifestyles while feeling good about themselves and I really do appreciate everyone who does so.

These are the kinds of slogans I can support. It's all about trying your best and finding balance.

I just think that if you are using social media to advocate "healthy living", you have a responsibility to do so in a positive way. I admire people who are dedicated to their own way of living healthily, but if you are breaking down anyone who does not follow your own method, then you really should not be publicizing it.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue!