Physical Education vs Instagram

Physical education vs Instagram  

Educating young people to understand body image

 Your experience on the topic on school placement

While on school placement I found that due to outside influences and pressures, many students are conscious of their body image. I found this with the second year students in particular. I mainly noticed this while doing a HRA unit of learning with the students. The students seemed motivated to do HRA as there was a lot of circuit training involved and both boys and girls remarked how the circuit training would help them ‘get better bodies’. While this was a positive thing as students were participating well in the lesson due to the extrinsic motivation, I do feel that there is too much pressure on young people to have a ‘perfect’ body image due to outside influences on social media, especially Instagram. I often overheard students discussing Instagram posts and social media while in PE and comparing themselves to celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, who post completely unrealistic pictures of themselves which are often edited. The boys also spoke of wanting ‘big guns’ with one student in particular asking me how he can train to make his arms look bigger. This student was 14 years old and not fully matured therefore he easily could have injured himself by overtraining. This really opened my eyes to the major influences that Instagram can have on young people and how impressionable they are. But as PE teachers the challenge for us is to help students understand positive body image and set realistic expectations of themselves.

 Key messages from literature

As evident above and as the literature states, more and more young people are turning to social media for information on body image, health and fitness (Goodyear et al, 2018). It is clearly obvious that young people are majorly influenced by social media and it has been found that many adolescents seek approval and acceptance of their appearance from their peers via social media (Collin, 2015). This ‘approval’ they seek comes in the form of likes and comments, but how can we help students understand that someone double tapping on their instagram picture (or not) does not define who they are? As future educators we have a major influence over young people’s perceptions of body image, and with studies showing that 13% of 11 to 16 year olds have been exposed to pro-anorexia sites online (EU Kids online study cited in Collin, 2015), our role in ensuring students understand positive body image is more vital now than ever. We must promote body image in a way which ensures students understand that everyone is different and just because a person portrays themselves as ‘healthy’ on social media, it does not necessarily mean they are. Goodyear et al (2018) found that young people use social media to access health-related information on physical activity (60%), diet/nutrition (55%) and body image (8%). Physical activity is the most common health-related aspect that young people research through social media. Therefore, PE teachers definitely have the potential to give students the correct, reliable information they require on physical activity to help them become healthy and have a positive body image, without creating unrealistic expectations of themselves.

What would you do going forward with regards to teaching practice (informed by literature)

As the literature clearly shows the large influence social media can have on young people, it is important that I help ensure that social media influences the students in my classes positively. I would do this through educating them in the potential hazards of workouts/diet plans they may view online. I can also educate them on how they should not believe everything they see on instagram as many celebrities post edited pictures of themselves which give young people unrealistic perceptions of ‘good’ body image. As outlined above the main health-related component students research on social media is physical activity, therefore going forward I would utilise this in my teaching by showing student’s fitness bloggers and influencers which are realistic and can give students safe ways to exercise based on their own body size/type and age. I would also have students work themselves to research fitness bloggers so that they could see which ones are promoting positive body image and also spot influencers which may be creating unrealistic ideologies for young people. This way, the students could be made aware of potential negative influencers and would know where they can seek useful advice from via social media.

References

Goodyear, V. Armour, K. and Wood, H. (2018) ‘Young people and their engagement with health-related social media: new perspectives’, Sport Education and Society, available at: 10.1080/13573322.2017.1423464

Collin, P. (2015) ‘Social media and the wellbeing of children and young people: A literature review’, Western Australia: Commissioner for Children and Young People, available at: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3296.6885.