Standing in line to check out at the grocery store, watching the news, casually browsing airport kiosks for some light plane reading – at all of these we are bombarded with images and taglines that critique women's bodies. In our modern world, everything is at the tip of our fingers; the Internet and its social media sharing sites provide immediate information on each and every person. This also gives a platform for people to post direct and sometimes anonymous comments to images and profiles alike. In this vast and instant world of sharing, body types, especially women's, come under fire. There is fat and skinny – neither fat nor skinny being good. There's the fat shaming movement the skinny shaming movement and magazine headlines to back them up. We are constantly being flooded with information about Brittany Spears fluctuating weight, Jessica Biel's post-baby body, and Giuliana Rancic's immense need to put on weight. Each of these puts a pressure on women to fit societies mold of perfection (whatever it may be because honestly, it changes weekly).

With Instagram, your experiences can be measured by how great the image that captured it was. With Twitter, your experience can be rated by how many re-tweets and favorites your witty 140 characters attained. It can be so easy to focus on your online popularity, instead of you know actually existing and experiencing life and stuff. This being said, it can also be extremely difficult to not compare yourself to other images and words you see documented. My 13-year-old cousin and her friends are so concerned with how many Instagram followers they have that they create fake accounts to gain a larger following. (This is terrifying, like why?!) They also comment on each others pictures with awful things like “OMG, I am SO jealous of your thigh gap" and caption their own pictures “Ugh, this cookie was so good, I'm such a fatty!" Watching T.V. and even looking at billboards while driving down the highway reinforces these types of awful comparisons and turn the female body into some sort of dehumanizing marketing ploy.

All of these outlets to post about the current state of the female body and to see images of people who sat in hair and makeup for three hours and were still photo shopped until unrecognizable - that you will compare yourself to, puts an immense pressure on women, especially the impressionable young, to always fit into societies newest trend. My words of advice, being a very knowledgeable and experienced 20-something (that was sarcasm, if you weren't following) is to always remember that your worth is not determined by Instagram likes or a number on a scale or the number of people you have or haven't slept with. Although it can be hard with all of the pressures in place, please, don't forget to love yourself.