The Dark Trend Of Being Thin
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The Dark Trend Of Being Thin

A look into Tumblr's #thinspo community.

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The Dark Trend Of Being Thin
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Tumblr is known for their many fandoms, popular memes and trends. Trends range from general aesthetics, fandom-inspired, and even studied aesthetics. However, Tumblr also secretly promotes a range of underground 'trends' of which is unknown to the general majority. There is one such trend called 'thinspo,' or thinspiration which is taken from the words 'thin' and 'inspiration.' Yes, this is the inspiration to become thin. This is the dark side of Tumblr, but it also sheds light on the danger of mainstream media, fat shaming and the results of a society that thinks pretty means thin.

When you first go into the 'thinspo' tag, you get an 'Are You Okay?' block of white centered text with Tumblr's blue background. You then choose to go back to the previous page, or you possibly click on the continue button. Once you continue, you are shown reblogs, and sometimes original posts, of skinny girls, reasons why skinny is better, and the bloggers' everyday diet routine. First, the pictures of the skinny girls are mostly white, young, and disproportionately thin. Sometimes, you see pictures of them in lingerie, bikinis, or even sports bra and shorts. Some pictures are pushing the boundary between a 'good' skinny while some are borderline anorexia. These thin girls are what some other girls will call their 'thinspiration.' Basically, a role model for the so-called 'perfect' body they want to achieve.

It's this role model status that concerns me: that girls think being anorexic is better than being healthy. Bones showing, even ribcage bones, are considered 'elegant' and 'beautiful.' Fat, even just a little bit, is scorned by every thinspo blogger, as it is in their belief that any ounce of fat is ugly and unsightly. Therefore they reblog, and even re-post, pictures of what they believe to be thin girls. Are those girls really what they appear to be? You see pictures of Instagram famous girls, celebs, models and average civilians who are thin enough to be someone's thin inspiration. While it may be true for most celebs, and even models, to be thin, it may not be true for other pictures. Camera lenses, mirrors, angles, lighting, those are all tricks that one can employ to make the subject look different. Not to mention the use of Photoshop nowadays and the very popular 'stomach sucking' technique. Yet, the thinspo bloggers hold these pictures as a testament to what their diets strive for. In their minds, these pictures are as real as life.

In addition to the amount of nauseating pictures of what could be a false representation of the subject's body, the site also shows text posts. One popular form of thinspo posts is where the blogger introduces herself by providing her current weight, her goal weight, and her under-goal weight. The most common goal weights I see are a whopping 110 lbs. and at the least in the 70s to 90s. Their under-goal weight is usually ten pounds lower than their actual goal weight. From my own personal experience, and seeing some bloggers, I can say that for many of these thinspo practitioners, their goal weight is almost useless. Some people strives for a weight that can make them feel 'feather-like' or 'almost like air.' They don't stop with shedding their weight because their diets become routine for them. An article about dieting states that usually dieting doesn't work, when people stop dieting all the weight they shed will come back rapidly. Perhaps the thinspo community knows about this article and they just never talk about it. Which would be why some people say they will continue to lose weight as if there are no goals but to be weightless. On the other hand, it's possible that nobody really tried to talk to these girls about a university's research into dieting. The thinspo community is so closed off to non-thinspo bloggers that it's rare for a blogger to receive these kinds of mails.

How do they achieve their 'goal' weights? Through calorie count, fasting and extreme exercising. Another popular variation of thinspo text posts is to make a daily count of the calories the blogger took in. These calories in total are too low, 99% of the time they never make it past 1000. Some even find it 'too much' when they reach 600 or 500 calories total. To get rid of these extra calories, or even all of them, the dieters exercise. Biking, walking, running miles and miles to the point where it's excessive, just so these calories would disappear. They risk the danger of muscle tear, joint pain and all other physical problems alongside losing too much weight.

What is even more disconcerting is the thinspo bloggers' obsession with fasting or going at least a day without food. Fasting is its own mini-trend among the thinspo community; some girls say the more likes their post makes, the more hours they will fast. I have seen girls stating they fasted for 14 hours, 35 hours and even 75 hours. What do they do during these periods of no food? They drink water, sugarless tea, coffee, sleep, read, etc. Anything they could possibly do is done, as long as they don't eat. Sometimes, the bloggers would fail by binging and then purging their food. This is all after a fast or just plain hunger. In the end the thinspo bloggers feel ashamed at themselves for binging. This happens often that some people have written tips on what to do to prevent binging, just like how some have written lists of why skinny is good, what to distract yourself with when you are hungry, etc.

What else happens if they eat 'too much?' Or they break their fast? Sometimes, the girls will post about asking someone to send them mean messages, targeting them on how fat they will become if they eat too much or can't commit to their fasting. Sometimes, the girls will just write how ugly they are, how fat they are, and then absolve to begin their diets and fast anew. The most popular diet trend is the ABC diet. ABC diets consist of a month or more of low calories and fasting. Every time a new day begins, the maximum calorie intake would be lowered by at least 100. Sometimes days of fasting would be interspersed between the low-calories days. When a blogger completes their one-month ABC diet they would gleefully post it onto their dashboard and then claim they will begin their next month anew with the same diet plan before.

Of course, not all underground trends stay underground. Thinspo has recently made its way into the mainstream Tumblr, and crops of 'anti thinspo' are popping up. This isn't surprising, since the most of Tumblr preaches about 'loving your body,' which isn't wrong at all. The anti-thinspo bloggers maintain that thinspo is promoting anorexia and eating disorders, while the thinspo bloggers go on the defense and state they 'do not promote eating disorders.' One may easily find the hypocrisy in the thinspo bloggers' words, the clues to their support of EDs are on their blog. Yet, it truly astounds me that these bloggers still type 'I in no shape or form support eating disorders' when their last post is about eating less because less is better and thin is pretty.

In a community where the 'I must be skinny; skinny is beautiful' became an everyday mantra, it wouldn't surprise many that young girls are being sucked into this outlook so easily. Society is bombarded with pictures of thinness even in real life and society also teaches you that most of the time being thin is equivalent to perfection. What these girls, both on Tumblr and anywhere else, don't know is that you can still look beautiful and even 'thin' as 120 pounds, 130 pounds, 140 pounds, etc. Our bodies are not made to be uniform, and so a person who weighs 120 may look thin while another person who weighs the same may not, or even a 138 pound person may look more slender than a person that weighs 120 pounds. This is all the result of body sizes, bone structures, heights and personal lifestyles. The blame isn't to fall entirely on thinspo girls, society has had its hand in this for a long while now.

The gender dynamics to this issue is also troubling, but not surprising. 99% of the thinspo bloggers are young girls, with the youngest being 15 and oldest in their late twenties. Above all, thinspo is telling us that the stress of being beautiful and skinny is relevant if you are young and a girl. This is the crucial factor to the social laws which the living generation has upheld for decades since 'skinny' became pretty. If we do not stop the crisis more and more girls will think that being thin, with bones protruding in places they should not, is the healthiest alternative.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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