I said in my introduction that I wouldn’t be posting or commenting on pictures of artsy, Tumblr-famous teenage girls. Though this post contains pictures that might fall under that category, it really is for analytical purposes.
Introduce the thigh gap. For those of you who are uneducated on this topic, it is the small gap between the thighs some women have when standing upright with both feet touching. Despite the fact that this is a very uncommon feature that few women have, it has become a social media phenomenon. Images of thigh gaps are all over Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter etc., and coming up on the newsfeeds of thousands of teenage girls.
Imagine this: A high school girl is sitting on her bed, computer open and bag of popcorn next to her. She’s scrolling through Tumblr and snacking, happy with herself that she finished her homework with enough time to relax and do some reblogging. She comes across a picture like this.
She likely does not look like that girl because very few women do, and suddenly she isn’t so happy with herself. She sees the popcorn and is no longer hungry. Society tells women to be 1. thin and 2. beautiful, and don’t many of the so called “thigh gap” models fit both criteria? Of course teenage girls see these photos, and feel badly about themselves.
What’s even worse is seeing pictures of girls like uber-thin Kendall and Kylie Jenner, who are around the same ages as many teenagers on Tumblr. Kendall and Kylie are not professional super models or Victoria’s Secret Angels. They are 16 and 18 year-old girls and still in high school. Regular teenage girls can relate to them, especially if the teenage girls watch Kendall and Kylie’s reality show Keeping up with the Kardashians. Seeing girls their own age that appear much older (this is likely because Kendall and Kylie have their hair and makeup done professionally almost every day), weigh next to nothing – especially when they’re 5’ 9” and 5’11” – and have thigh gaps is really hard on the average teenage girl.
The reality is that whether or not someone has a thing gap or not depends on the structure of her skeleton; women with wide hips are more likely to have a thigh gap than women with narrow hips. There are so called “guides to a thigh gap”, but they are not correct. Science shows that there is almost nothing one can do to create one, short of starvation.
Teenage girls have enough issues with eating disorders. The National Eating Disorder Association, has said that “…exposure to online images of extreme beauty standards and the drive to compare does increase the risk of developing eating disorders…” This is horrible and something that needs to be changed. I think that Tumblr is a great thing and one of the best forms of social media. However, it is clearly doing teenage girls a disservice.
I don’t personally have a cure for what columnists have called “the most extreme body fixation yet”. The thigh gap is feature of some women’s bodies, and by no means am I speaking badly about women who naturally have one. I just think that the rest of the population with “touching thighs” shouldn’t feel badly about themselves. The fact is that it is almost impossible for women with healthy muscle definition to have a thing gap, even if they have wide hips. I am a huge advocate of exercise and hearing this is comforting. It just further proves that emphasis should be placed on maintaining a strong and healthy body as opposed to super thin and thigh-gapped one. Not everyone is built to have one, and that really is okay.