Youth Talk

THE advent of mass social media has sparked another new trend: challenges. We’ve seen the ALS Ice Bucket challenge, the Kylie Jenner lip challenge and the Don’t Judge challenge over the last year.

It’s only been four months into 2016 and we already have a new one: the A4 skinny waist challenge. The ‘challenge’ first emerged on the Chinese social network Weibo and has now gone viral.

Women, and some men, are uploading pictures of themselves holding a piece of A4 paper. Why? To prove that they have a waistline smaller than an 8.3-inch piece of paper.

Theoretically participants in this challenge would have to have a waistline of 25 inches. To put that in perspective, the average American’s waistline is 35 inches. Chinese women have reported only drinking water for weeks on end, to achieve this supposedly perfect figure.

It is here that I congratulate social media for actually being quite useful. Challenges like the ‘A4 skinny waist’ only highlights the serious flaws present within our modern society.

Why are young people, and particularly girls, expected to conform to a certain notion of beauty? The challenge exposes society’s willingness to engage in this pursuit of beauty, regardless of the detrimental personal costs.

It is indeed disturbing that conformity to a certain, unobtainable image is what is considered desirable.

Individuality is a gift. Perfection is merely an illusion, reality is far safer.