INSTAGRAM What those who criticize Georgina's body should know
MIDWIVES This is the oldest profession in the world
Perfect after childbirth
... The big lie.
How many times have we seen on social networks the
miraculous recoveries
of some
celebrities
after giving birth.
Adriana Lima, Victoria Beckham, Heidi Klum, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie... The examples are inexhaustible.
Although there are more and more female voices with public projection who want to shed light
on the harsh experiences
of this transcendental experience in life, the truth is that there is enormous social pressure to
turn the page as if nothing had happened
.
It is normalized that, with hardly any recovery time and although the body has changed, there is an immediate recovery of the female figure.
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Now, a study focused on the
analysis of the images
that run through social networks reveals it at the International Congress on Obesity, held in Melbourne (Australia).
Healthcare
magazine
has published this
paper
that detects a
fatal effect on the woman
who has just given birth after seeing the unreality of the #Postpartumbody tag on Instagram, with more than two million posts.
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WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS
Most of the images of women on Instagram labeled as postpartum (a popular forum for sharing these types of images)
do not reflect the reality
of women who have recently given birth, this study concludes.
To arrive at this inference, 600 images tagged
#postpartumbody
(300 categorized as 'top' trending and 300 'recent') were systematically captured from Instagram and coded using a predefined framework for
adiposity, muscularity, pose, and attire.
The authors' exhaustive search of
hashtags
on Instagram identified this hashtag, compared to others, as highly used and with specific relevance to the postpartum period.
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After this detailed analysis, Dr. Gow, responsible for directing the investigation, asserts that "these images present
an 'idealized' version of the postpartum body."
The problem with this unreal representation is that the recipients would be women who are already "struggling with feelings of inadequacy", contributing to their body dissatisfaction, explains the expert.
BODY BOMBING 10
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When the post search was conducted, as of October 2020, 1.3 million images had been uploaded to Instagram tagged with
#postpartumbody
.
By the time of manuscript submission in September 2022, this figure had risen to two million, which is equivalent to approximately
1,000 images uploaded daily.
Likewise, research previously established that Instagram use is associated with negative impacts on mood and body satisfaction in young women.
The comparison, therefore, was made to determine the characteristics of the most popular posts that can help establish whether Instagram is an
acceptable platform to transmit health information
to postpartum women.
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Of the 600 images, more than two-thirds (409) focused on women, including 256 (43%) coded as an individual mother, 59 (10%) considered to be a
before-and-after body
image, and 94 (16%) ) as woman and baby or child/children.
Of these 409 images, adiposity (body fat) could be assessed in 306, of which the majority had low (37%) or average (54%) body fat ratings and only one in 11 (9%) had a high body fat.
Of the 250 images evaluated in relation to musculature, 130 (52%) were of a woman coded with "little or none", 110 images (44%) were of women with "visible definition".
The majority of the 59 images classified as "before and after" images were of women who had experienced
weight loss
(54%).
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THE CONCLUSIONS
What do the authors say after this procedure?
As a first consequence, it is extracted that "
women with less body fat and wearing sportswear
are more likely to post images of themselves on Instagram than women with greater adiposity".
On the other hand, viewing such images can worsen body satisfaction at an already vulnerable stage of life, they say.
"Since women access Instagram a lot during the postpartum period, the inclusion of
health information may be necessary
to disrupt the potentially harmful content observed in our study."
Dr Megan Gow, from
the University of Sydney Children's Hospital Westmead Clinical School
in Australia, adds that research suggests women may be more interested in seeing other women on Instagram than receiving postpartum health information: "This may include information directed at diet, exercise, infant feeding, and psychological well-being to optimize health after giving birth."
However, she acknowledges that more research is needed to determine why women use social media platforms like Instagram for information.
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WHAT DO THE RECENT MOMS THINK?
"Throughout this process,
having good self-esteem, feeling well psychologically and the support of your partner
is fundamental," says Sandra Martínez, 33, who has just become a mother.
This Madrilenian launches the idea that the idealization of motherhood does not come only from social networks, but from what your environment tells you.
If you are a conscious person, you know from the moment you get pregnant that
your life is going to change and that your body is going to deform
, she insists.
"If you are not well emotionally or with your physique, of course you can be influenced by what you see in the famous and
influencers
and what the rest tell you, because they do not focus on how bad you have it. But, in the Bottom line, I think we know that this is not the reality, that in the delivery room the least important thing to you, or at least in my case, is having flat-ironed hair and an eye line, but rather that in that first photo you share the reality that the baby is fine.
Martínez has followed Dr. Carla Barber on Instagram this time, she says, due to the coincidence in the time of her pregnancies.
"I thought: 'What a flat stomach two days after giving birth. Good for her.' But those are exceptional cases and
I have never compared myself and I know it takes time to be like before."
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THE EXPERT VIEW
"It is logical that mothers inform themselves on social networks because it is
a very direct and close consumption.
On hard nights, it hardly takes a second to open the application at a time when it is difficult to find the right professionals. While you are pregnant you have advice, but after giving birth you feel a bit abandoned", explains Lorena Loma-Ossorio, founder of the specialized center for women WOmum, which deals daily with women in the stage of motherhood.
The hormonal drop is logical, after a physical trauma of this caliber, and emotionally you feel more vulnerable, he says.
"Your belly no longer makes sense because you just had the baby. You look at it and it's ugly, as if it doesn't belong to your body. you dedicate yourself to seeing perfect families
where everything is ideal and they show off a great body
, that can accentuate postpartum depression by feeling like the ugly duckling of the movie", he asserts.
It is also true that there is
a contrary movement
that advocates sharing a more real motherhood on social networks, as is the case of Katy Perry or, in Spain, Sara Sálamo or Laura Escanes.
"Many celebrities are now fleeing from that stereotype of the mother who leaves the hospital with radiant skin, without a belly and with a baby that does not cry. I think it is positive because, in the end, the woman is under a lot of pressure to comply with the standards of idyllic motherhood that are sold to us," says Loma-Ossorio.
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