With my efforts to confront my obesity and change my eating habits drastically and effectively, concurrent with my recent activities to expand my knowledge of social media, I began looking through the Health/Fitness section of Pinterest. It was depressing. Statistically, Pinterest skews heavily towards the female user. I would hazard, based on the numbers I could easily Google, that you could pretty safely argue that at least 70% of Pinterest users are women. And what are those women seeing when they look at the Health/Fitness board? Models that belong in Maxim magazine and Playboy. primarily. Unrealistic body images that girls and women are inundated with and yet, cannot hope to achieve. I scrolled through roughly ten pages or so of the current pins and I saw exactly two males, one a dancer holding a partner in a split and the other was Bruce Lee in his ripped glory. Everyone else was female, and almost exclusively of the Photoshop genetic line…
This vexes me.
I am well aware of the effects of advertising on young minds. Back in 2009 we still had cable television, my favourite channel was Cartoon Network. My two young boys were, of course, huge fans as well. A very frustrating side effect of enjoying all the cartoons soon reared its ugly head. Trips to the store were always a test of patience as my wife and I were constantly bombarded for this or that toy. At home the boys were always discussing the next thing that they wanted. It was an ever present issue. When we finally cut the cord to cable and went strictly high speed internet combined with streaming Netflix, not only did we save money by not having cable TV, our children suddenly stopped asking us for everything. You see, no commercials on Netflix. The change was very dramatic. I would say requests for particular toys, etc dropped 90%. Truth away from advertising…
So, when I see a popular social site, utilized primarily by women, who are posting unreasonable expectations for themselves for my daughter to see, I worry. I worry a great deal.