It’s a problem that affects not only teenagers, but adults too – negative body image.
So when 19-year-old Victoria Erickson saw this photo of herself and her best friend, she initially thought she loved it, until she zoned in on her imperfections.
The journalism sophomore wrote a blog about the way she handled the situation, writing: “The things I thought of when I saw this picture was how HAPPY I look: I’m jubilant, radiant, fresh home from my first year at college and ready to celebrate with my hometown best friend. And I should’ve stopped there ... My mentality went from ‘you look HAPPY!!’ to ‘Yeah, you look happy ... but why? You’re fat.’ Followed by, ‘Don’t believe me? Just look at that lump of cellulite you call a leg take over the shot and deplete the image of any beauty there may have been.’”
Speaking on TODAY, the teenager described her wonderment that the professional photographer who took the shot didn't just Photoshop her, but then she realised that was the problem: “I'm so used to things being photoshopped and airbrushed that I was like, ‘It would have been so easy to fix that, why didn’t he? And then I kind of had to take a step back and be like, ‘Why is that the new normal?’”
Victoria has inspired thousands of young women, not only with her powerful words on the matter, but by sharing the photo with the world: “I’m 19 and I've had enough. No more body comparisons and emotional affliction. No more distress caused by preconceived notions of body image. No more to any of it.”
