Addison Rae is the latest influencer to come clean about her struggle with body image and negative comments on social media.
In a recent interview with Glamour UK, Rae reveals how fans on social media have affected her self-worth:
“It’s a really hard thing to deal with when you’re a girl, especially going through your teens. I am 20 and my body is constantly changing, but people have this high standard around body image and say, ‘Oh, you have to look like this to look great or to look hot or to be cool or to be pretty.’ For me, a lot of people have said, ‘Oh I love how comfortable she is and she doesn’t look like the beauty standard.’ It’s a backhanded compliment sometimes because people will be like, ‘I’m so glad she’s confident that she doesn’t look perfect.’ It hurts sometimes when people say that, because I think everyone’s perfect, so why is there some standard of ‘this body is the ideal body’”.
Rae alludes to an important topic: social media’s perpetuation of the ‘ideal body type’. With Instagram feeds constantly flooded with images of perfect bodies and filtered faces, it is no surprise that many struggle with negative body image – especially those who spend a lot of time scrolling through their socials.
Body comparison is also a rising issue and an unfortunate byproduct of these unrealistic standards – with many females online constantly asking themselves why their bodies don’t look a certain way. To many, body comparison has become a thief of joy – a statement that Addison Rae couldn’t agree more with:
“I used to ask myself, ‘Why doesn’t my body look like that? Or why isn’t my hair that way? Or why is my face this way?’ Or even feature-wise, sometimes I would just really look at myself and pick myself apart for no reason. There is so much going on in the world today, adding self-esteem onto that is really tough. If you can’t mentally, emotionally or physically love who you are it becomes really difficult to even be happy. I know I’ve not been eating the best during quarantine or maybe not working out as much and watching a lot of TV, but we need to give ourselves grace” – Addison Rae, Glamour UK Interview.
Rae – who is no stranger to self-esteem issues – tries to remind her audience that they are not alone when it comes to negative feelings of self-worth. More importantly, she urges her followers to not be so hard on themselves and to practice self-love whenever they can.