There’s a new trend sweeping the internet: The A4 challenge, (originating on China’s version of Twitter, Weibo). The challenge involves holding an A4 piece of paper across the waist, and deems girls thin enough if their waist is completely hidden by the paper.
The width of an A4 piece of paper is just 21 centimeters; this is smaller than a UK size zero. Yes, you read that right.
Whist this trend may have not taken off on social media in the UK just yet, many have commented on the trend, labelling it ‘disgusting’.
But what does this say about the pressure on female body sizes? This ‘challenge’ follows on from one that again, originated in China, where females who could stretch their whole arm around their waist and touch their belly button were seen as ‘skinny’.
Not only does this show the differences in perceptions of being ‘skinny enough’ (and despite the slow rise of plus sized models and celebrities, this is clearly not something that will shift soon) but it also displays the alarming pressure put on young women to attain to an ideal that is almost impossible to get, encouraging them to measure themselves by their body measurements. More than this, the whole challenge is based on perceptions and how far the piece of paper is held away from the body.
Around 725,000 people in the UK in 2015 were identified as having an eating disorder, with inpatient admissions to a hospital resulting from a disorder rising 7% each year – and that’s just those diagnosed within the UK. Is the increasing permeation of social media into our everyday life affecting these figures?
Rises in challenges such as these can have dangerous affects on our perception of our own body, judging it by arbitrary measurements designed for those to show off about their own bodies. Judging your own body by this challenge and by the perceived success of others is something that is hard to resist for some, and downright harmful for those suffering from or recovering from eating disorders, putting pressure on girls to lose weight.
However, the response to this A4 challenge has been optimistic; Twitter users have been busy criticizing the trend and news outlets and magazines have run several articles fighting against this challenge.
However, it’s most likely premature to view this backlash to the challenge as anything more than a response to an extreme version of promoting thinness – it’ll be a long time before we see a move away from the near-constant promotion of skinniness in the media, and an evening-out to reflect all body shapes and sizes.