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Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health

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A special issue of Youth (ISSN 2673-995X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 37436

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Julia Coffey

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Guest Editor

School of Humanities, Creative Industries & Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW 2258, Australia
Interests: youth; embodiment; gender; affect; feminism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Issues connected with gendered bodily experience, embodiment, and body image are fraught and contested topics in studies of youth. Young people’s embodied identity (including body-related concerns, or body image) is forged in relation to prevailing gendered and racialised body ideals. These ideals are arguably intensifying through a range of social, cultural, and structural dimensions which shape the conditions of the possibility for identity and experience in young people’s lives, including precarious and insecure working conditions, financial pressures, and the demands of a heavily visually focused digital culture with contemporary social media. The proliferating aesthetic standards of ‘perfect’ beauty are presented as normal and everyday in social media. Cultural studies and sociological accounts show how this pressure manifests in self-branding as an increasingly common-sense way of negotiating social digital media. Young people are encouraged to ‘optimise’ themselves through ‘body work’ to improve their appearance as a crucial form of (gendered) self-work required in digital youth cultures.

This Special Issue invites contributions exploring topics of youth body image. This Special Issue seeks articles which situate body image as a social and cultural, not individual, phenomena, to extend beyond dominant pathologising approaches of body image and embodiment in which bodies passively absorb media images of cultural representations. This Special Issue welcomes theorisations and methodological approaches in which the active role of bodies in the formation of identity and everyday life is highlighted. Articles exploring the ways body image intersects with inequalities, including but also extending beyond gender to include the contours of sexuality, racialisation, class, ability, and location, are encouraged.

Dr. Julia Coffey
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Youth is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

gender
body image
youth
health
youth cultures
social media
wellbeing

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Published Papers (11 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

7 pages, 184 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Beyond Body Image: Youth, Embodiment, and Inequalities

by Julia Coffey

Youth 2024, 4(3), 1187-1193; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth4030074 - 6 Aug 2024

Viewed by 1185

Abstract

Young people must navigate intense socio-cultural pressures related to their self-presentation and appearance [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

18 pages, 1267 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Postdigital Bodies: Young People’s Experiences of Algorithmic, Tech-Facilitated Body Shaming and Image-Based Sexual Abuse during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic in England

by Jessica Ringrose, Betsy Milne, Tanya Horeck and Kaitlynn Mendes

Youth 2024, 4(3), 1058-1075; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth4030066 - 23 Jul 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1995

Abstract

In this paper, we draw upon a study exploring how COVID-19 and social isolation impacted young people’s (aged 13–18) experiences of online sexual and gendered risks and harms in England during nationwide lockdowns and upon their return to school. We explore the complexities, tensions and ambiguities in youth navigating algorithmised feeds on social media apps such as TikTok and content featuring idealised cis-gendered, heterosexualised feminine and masculine embodiment. Young people repeatedly witness hateful and abusive comments that are algorithmically boosted. We argue that this toxic content normalises online hate in the form of body shaming and sexual shaming, developing the concept of the postdigital to analyse the offline, affective, embodied and material dimensions of online harm, harassment and abuse. We also explore young people’s direct experiences of receiving harmful comments, including girls’ and gender and sexuality-diverse youth’s experiences of body and sexual shaming, as well as boys’ experiences of fat shaming; which, in many instances, we argue must be classified as forms of image-based abuse. Using our postdigital lens, we argue that the ways heteronormative, cis-gendered masculine and feminine embodiment are policed online shapes behaviour and norms in young people’s everyday lives, including in and around school, and that better understanding and support around these issues is urgently needed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

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21 pages, 664 KiB

Open AccessArticle

‘Feminine Threshold’: Theorizing Masculine Embodiment with Latinx Men

by Adriana Haro

Youth 2024, 4(3), 983-1003; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth4030062 - 12 Jul 2024

Viewed by 1614

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss how young Latinx men living in Australia negotiate, embody, and complicate existing dominant and racialized masculinities. Queer and feminist theories are used to explore how Latinx men negotiate and embody masculinities, sexualities, and being ‘other’ in a White dominant cultural context. These tensions were explored through semi-structured in-depth interviews and a creative visual method known as sandboxing with twenty-one Latinx men. Sandboxing aims to elicit conversation and allows for the reflection and sharing of a visual and symbolic representation of participants’ lives. The findings suggest masculinities are lived and embodied alongside negotiating racialization and sexualities. The fluidity of masculinities surfaces in participants’ reflexive engagement with masculinities and the nuances in negotiating and simultaneously reproducing gender binary norms. Participants’ careful negotiation in engaging with feminine culture led to developing the concept ‘feminine threshold’, a theoretical contribution offered in this article, in understanding how Latinx men negotiate masculinities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

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18 pages, 250 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A New Materialist Analysis of Health and Fitness Social Media, Gender and Body Disaffection: ‘You Shouldn’t Compare Yourself to Anyone… but Everyone Does’

by Emma Rich

Youth 2024, 4(2), 700-717; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth4020047 - 19 May 2024

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1078

Abstract

Recent research has documented the relationship between the promotion of ‘ideal’, ‘fit’ bodies in social media, body image and associated body concerns and conditions. This article expands this scholarship, focusing specifically on gender, body disaffection and social media. Thus far, body disaffection has mostly been understood through a psychological framing, as a pathology residing within an individual and strongly associated with poor body image because of internalizing media images. In this paper, drawing on feminist new materialism, I offer a framing of body disaffection as a relational phenomenon. The paper draws on a mixed method study in England, with over 1000 young people examining their experiences with a range of digital health technologies. I focus specifically on their engagement with social media, to explore the relationship between ideal images and body concerns. Far from being a simple process of internalization of negative perceptions or image one has of their body, disaffection is formed through the body via a complex process of entanglement with social media and other elements. I outline how disaffection materialises as part of an assemblage of elements, including discourses, humans, bodies, digital objects and platforms. The paper reveals how entanglements with social media can generate powerful affects such as shame, pleasure and belonging along gendered lines, which may have significant implications for young people’s relationships with their bodies. I analyse how social media events focused on the ‘transformation’ of bodies generate powerful affects, which open or limit capacities for what ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ bodies might become in deeply gendered and sometimes harmful ways. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

19 pages, 316 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“It Feels like You’re a Stranger in Your Own Skin”: Young People’s Accounts of Everyday Embodiment

by Octavia Calder-Dawe and Teah Anna Lee Carlson

Youth 2023, 3(4), 1225-1243; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth3040078 - 1 Nov 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2020

Abstract

While much existing research investigates embodiment and body image in individualised terms, new research in youth studies takes a wider view. How are young people’s experiences of embodiment entangled with sociocultural and structural influences? How do young people come to develop a sense of embodied identity in contexts that teem with hostile and unattainable body ideals? How are possibilities for affirming and affirmative embodiment navigated by young people—especially those living outside prevailing appearance norms? In this paper, we engage with these questions, drawing insights from an in-depth, collaborative research project designed to understand what supports and constrains hauora and wellbeing for young people in Aotearoa (New Zealand). First, we analyse young people’s accounts thematically, identifying three prevailing systems of cultural privilege that regulate embodiment. These include processes of racialisation and gendering, as well as cisnormative, heteronormative, ableist and healthist logics. Second, we work closely with one young person’s interview, exploring how her narrative unsettles prevailing norms of appearance and embodiment. By spotlighting what young people themselves tell us about their bodies and embodied experiences, this paper demonstrates the value of an embodiment lens for youth and wellbeing studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

13 pages, 248 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The “Psychologization” of Self-Images: Parents Views on the Gendered Dynamics of Sexting and Teen Social Media Cultures

by Amy Shields Dobson and Maria Delaney

Youth 2023, 3(3), 991-1003; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth3030063 - 17 Aug 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3476

Abstract

This paper reports on data from interviews conducted with parents of high school-aged teens as part of a study which was aimed at better understanding the gendered dimensions of youth sexting and social media use, and the community responses to it. Here, we outline the findings on parents’ key concerns around digital and social media, their perceptions of the gendered dynamics of youth self-imaging practices, and their attitudes towards sexting and potentially “sexualized” self-images. Echoing other research in this area, parents were not overly concerned about sexting, nor sexual image-sharing or sexual media use among teens. Rather, their key concerns were more generally about the intensities and pressures of constant contact with peers in the digital era. They did, however, articulate key gender differences and socialization processes around youth self-imaging practices. We discuss the gendered cultural “attunements to sexualization” that parents negotiate in relation to social media image-sharing practices and suggest that the perspectives and experiences described can be understood as part of a broader cultural “psychologization”, and often psycho-pathologizing, of youth self-images in digitally networked intimate publics that is particularly intense around the vectors of gender and sexuality. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

20 pages, 351 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“My Thighs Can Squash You”: Young Māori and Pasifika Wāhine Celebration of Strong Brown Bodies

by Mihi Joy Nemani and Holly Thorpe

Youth 2023, 3(3), 971-990; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth3030062 - 14 Aug 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3660

Abstract

Media representations and dominant social constructions of the ‘ideal’ physique for young women are often framed through a Westernised lens that focuses on heteronormative, White able-bodied aesthetics of beauty and femininity. Until very recently, the imagery available for young women to connect with and aspire to has been highly limited, failing to represent the embodied cultural beliefs that Indigenous and culturally-minoritised young women may have towards the gendered body. In this paper, we draw upon focus groups (wānanga) and digital diaries with young, physically active Māori and Pasifika wāhine (women) in Aotearoa New Zealand, to reveal how they are making meaning out of dominant framings of beauty, and drawing upon cultural knowledge to refuse such portrayals, instead reclaiming power in their own bodies. Working at the intersection of Mana Wahine and Masi methodologies, this article amplifies the voices of young Māori and Pasifika wāhine who actively participate in sport and/or physical activity, embrace and appreciate their strong brown bodies, and are critically reading and rejecting dominant Western framings of beauty and femininity. In so doing, this paper contributes to a growing international dialogue about the need for new culturally-informed understandings of body image by young women from Indigenous and culturally marginalised communities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

19 pages, 1541 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Girls Navigating the Context of Unwanted Dick Pics: ‘Some Things Just Can’t Be Unseen’

by Emma Barker-Clarke

Youth 2023, 3(3), 935-953; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth3030060 - 1 Aug 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 10184

Abstract

The terms cyberbullying and nudes, when used by young people, generally overlap to categorise a range of online harms. Yet, when unpacked with girls, their co-opting of these terms can minimize image-based sexual harassment. This paper draws upon findings from a participatory project exploring implicit interpretations of cyberbullying and nudes. I narrow in on the voices of girls, aged 13–15, as they report embodied discomfort and violation from [i] unwanted dick pics from peers and [ii] stranger cyberflashing. To analyse their experiences, I re-work Pierre Bourdieu’s toolkit to a gendered digital habitus with social fields in integrated offline–online contexts in which the unexpected viewing of dick pics leaks across. This reworking illustrates the tensions the girls experience. Resourcefully, the girls draw on embodied postfeminist dispositions to manage their discomfort and safety. I conclude that their normalisations may illustrate symbolic violence, as their postfeminist dispositions attune them to rationalize image-based sexual harassment as naturalised masculine actions. These responses ‘make sense’ to the girls, a position held in preference to the consequences of reporting image-based sexual harassment. Reporting could increase the risk of confrontation with the sender in offline fields and/or potentially result in loss of access, due to adult intervention, to devices and social media. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

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16 pages, 272 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“She’s Pretty in Her Pictures but in Real Life She’s Ugly”: School Pupils Negotiating the Blurred Boundaries between Online and Offline Social Contexts

by Sarah MacIsaac, Shirley Gray and John Kelly

Youth 2023, 3(3), 897-912; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth3030058 - 26 Jul 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2661

Abstract

Online social interaction has become integral to contemporary social life, adding new dimensions to how young people learn, interact, and perceive themselves and one another. We present findings from a yearlong ethnographic study within a Scottish state secondary school to explain pupils’ informal social relationships. We particularly investigate how school pupils experience social life inside and outside of school in relation to presenting themselves on social media and consider how they negotiate the overlap between their online (social media) representations and offline (school) encounters with their peers. Our findings evidence that pupils engaged in self-presentation within and across online and offline social contexts, whilst experiencing pressure to ‘keep up appearances’ between the two. The online environment afforded pupils greater control over self-presentation, especially in relation to bodily appearances. Here, pupils had time and tools to construct idealised fronts and to amass online capital. In some circumstances, this capital could have exchange value within offline environments. However, young people were at continual risk of having their carefully constructed identities discredited when in an in-person setting. We explore these issues in relation to pupil health, wellbeing, and learning, and we consider how educators may respond. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

22 pages, 321 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“If You Didn’t Exercise during Lockdown, What Were You Even Doing?”: Young Women, Sport, and Fitness in Pandemic Times

by Holly Thorpe, Grace O’Leary, Nida Ahmad and Mihi Joy Nemani

Youth 2023, 3(3), 847-868; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth3030055 - 19 Jul 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3182

Abstract

Sports and physical activity organizations around the world have expressed concern that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted girls and young women’s participation, with relatively fewer young women returning to sport post-lockdowns than their male counterparts. The purpose of this research is to understand how young women’s experiences of sport and physical activity were impacted by extended and repeated lockdowns, considerable social disruption, and ongoing risks of contagion. Our research draws upon interviews and focus groups with 44 young women (16–24 years) living in Aotearoa New Zealand during the pandemic. Recognizing that young women’s opportunities and experiences of sport and fitness (before, during and after the pandemic) vary considerably based on a range of socio-cultural factors, our sample was intentionally diverse, inviting young women from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, from rural and urban settings, and with a range of pre-pandemic sport and fitness experiences. Engaging an intersectional and affective sensibility, we reveal the complex ways that the pandemic impacted the young women’s embodied, relational and affective experiences of sport and fitness. Contrary to recent concerns about young women dropping out from sport and physical activity, our research reveals the varied ways the pandemic shifted young women’s relations with their own and others’ moving bodies, transforming their relationships with sport and fitness, with renewed understandings of the importance of physical activity for joy, connection, and wellbeing. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

13 pages, 293 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Menstrual Tracking, Fitness Tracking and Body Work: Digital Tracking Tools and Their Use in Optimising Health, Beauty, Wellness and the Aesthetic Self

by Anna Friedlander

Youth 2023, 3(2), 689-701; https://doi.org/10.3390/youth3020045 - 18 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2725

Abstract

Digital self-tracking tools can be part of body work to measure, monitor, and optimise progress towards idealised versions of the self. Fitness and calorie trackers are obvious examples but menstrual tracking apps, which can track a large range of bodily ‘symptoms’, can also be part of body work. In this article, I present accounts of young people’s menstrual and fitness tracking experiences from existing literature, illustrating how both types of trackers can function as part of their users’ body work. I interweave these stories with an autoethnographic account of my own embodied experiences with and through menstrual and fitness tracking apps. I explore the ways in which health, beauty, and wellness can become enmeshed in self-tracking practices; how emotions, stress, and sleep can become personal problems to solve; how tracking tools can make body work feel more ‘real’; and the mutual but asymmetrical shaping of digital tracking tools and their users. Though there is an existing body of work on young people’s experiences of digital self-tracking tools more generally (particularly health and fitness tracking tools), young people’s use of menstrual tracking apps is a relatively understudied phenomenon to date. The themes identified in this article point towards possible avenues for future research. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Body Image: Youth, Gender and Health)

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