Body Image & Social Media #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek
It’s Mental Health Awareness Week!
Hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, the aim of the week is to raise awareness around issues that can affect everyone, including stress, relationships, loneliness, sleep, alcohol and friendship. This year’s theme is Body Image - or how we think and feel about our bodies.
We’re focusing on body image and social media, as we know that social media and the impacts it can have is something that particularly affects LJMU students. Last year 1,713 students took part in a national survey on mental health, which showed us some key findings:
• 62% of LJMU students use social media more than 10 times a day
• 14% of LJMU students use it more than 40 times a day
• These are social media behaviours that LJMU students say they do either ‘very often’ or ‘quite often’:
• Comparing themselves to others on social media (32%)
• Looking through other people’s profiles (31%)
• Looking through own profile (19%)
Although social media can be a positive way to connect with friends, family and keep up to date with current affairs, these statistics clearly show the potential negative impacts of social media in our day to day lives. If you feel like this is something that might be impacting on your self-esteem, it may help try making some changes – for example, looking at which accounts make you feel this way and unfollowing them. Here are some tips from your Student Officers:
Julia Daer, VP Academic Quality - “Consider taking a week off social media if you can. I recently took a break and it made me feel more in the moment. Since deleting the apps on my phone, I have not reinstalled them and am only checking them on my laptop, which has definitely meant I’ve spent less time of my phone. “
Fiona Brereton, VP Activities - “What you see on Instagram is never real. You can see a perfect photo but you don’t realise how many hours have gone in to it!”
If you feel you need to talk to someone about your mental health, there is a dedicated team at LJMU who can help you. Here is more information about the support available to you.
