Your self-worth is how you respect and value yourself. It can help you feel good about yourself.
Body image is how you see your body. If your self-worth is low, you can start judging yourself more harshly, causing you to feel like you are trapped in a negative loop.
Social media can really influence how you see yourself and your body, which impacts your self-esteem. Sometimes it can have a positive impact, but it can also be negative.
It can become addictive and make you want to look at it more.
Too good to be true
There are millions of people on social media, including famous people and influencers.
They might tell you about different products they are using, or foods they are eating that make them look a certain way. And you might feel like you want to look like they do.
People use filters and tools to change how they look, creating a fake image of themselves, and it can leave you feeling bad about yourself.
How it impacts your mental health
If these negative thoughts happen for a while, then it becomes easier to accept and believe them, and this impacts your mental health.
Trying to change how you look to make yourself feel better does not always work and can affect your physical health and your mental health.
You might:
- feel depressed
- be anxious about things
- not be sleeping well
- feel jealous of other people
Understanding your self-worth
There are ways you can become more confident and improve your self-esteem, so you feel more positive about your body and how you look.
By learning to understand where your negative feelings come from, you can start to change how you see yourself.
It’s important that any changes you make are for yourself. It’s normal to not be completely happy all the time, but you can do things that help you feel more positive in general.
It is worth remembering:
- things you see on social media might not be real
- influencers get paid to advertise products – they want to sell a look
- filters and tools change how people really look
- social media only shows what people want it to, which isn’t always the truth
- to find accounts that make you feel good about yourself
Take a break
Social media can be a place to feel connected, so maybe thinking about how you use it, and changing your habits could help.
You can try to:
- set a time limit for social media and reduce your screen time
- turn off your notifications and only look when you want to
- follow body positive accounts
- take some time out to talk to people face to face
- talk to someone you trust about what you see online