Thigh gaps, bikini bridges, thigh brows, and the A4 Waist Challenge. It seems a new and ridiculous stigmatizing body standard, based on complex and deeply ingrained societal expectations pops up every day, with a great deal of people ready to follow these dangerous body trends.
Studies have indicated that men and women equally share concerns over their looks. When it comes to self-conciousness, both sexes are unequivocally as deeply worried about the way they are perceived. The conclusions of this research also points out that women are far more likely on average to be exposed to body shaming than men. Therefore, on average, there is more risk associated with women when it comes to body standards and societal perception.
As the newest trend rears its ugly head, people (mostly females) are now experimenting by holding up a piece of a A4 paper and comparing it to their waist size. Unbelievably so, the natural hips of a woman is now being likened to a thin (literally paper thin) 8.5 x 11 inch piece of printer paper.
It is important to note that there are plenty of healthy and natural body shapes and sizes that come in this form, and are naturally thin enough to be have a waist that is indeed smaller than this size of paper. However, the source of this body-trend is a dangerous dieting hazard that allows people to obsess over comparing their waist size to a narrowly constructed sheet.
In essence, the #A4Challenge consists of positioning an 8.5 x 11 inch paper in front of your body and then taking a mirror selfie in order to see if the printer paper blocks your waist. If you appear to be thinner than the slim sheet, you have succeeded!
Some have described this as “a horrifying new way to valorize toxically narrow definitions of beauty” and a journalist from The Cut also described this as: “the Ice Bucket Challenge, but for propagating impossible body standards.”
This challenge, or any challenge, implies that you are either be a winner or a loser, and this new hashtag creates a sense of accomplishment for those who believe they have passed an unnecessary and hazardous beauty standard.
Of course, this is not the first time a body-conscious trend has appeared and garnered an insane amount of followers. #DoItForTheThighGap was an incredibly popular viral internet phenomena that had millions of views, and was accompanied by exercises and spread dangerous ideas about body standards. This inevitably lead to some very unhealthy outcomes and countless eating disorders.
Instagram has even classified #thighgap as sensitive content, so that viewers cannot view the material associated or tagged.
People even came up with some very clever and hilarious comebacks to the disturbing trend like #DoItForTheThighGap.
Hopefully this #A4Challenge will become as old as the collarbone challenge, bikini bridges and die down like the infamous thigh gap. Granted, it has stirred the social media cirlce and led to some hilarious snakry comebacks.
So let this be a reminder that there is no one-size-fits-all to beauty or health; and if you really want to win this challenge, just try holding the A4 paper a little farther away. Voilà.
Sources:
www.newsweek.com/wheres-ken-abandonment-men-body-positivity-430416
www.mashable.com/2016/03/17/a4-waist-challenge/#G3bLmPVd5Sq7
www.nymag.com/thecut/2016/03/trend-skinny-enough-to-hide-behind-paper-ch…
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2444622/Thigh-gap-Eating-disorder-exp…
www.livelifeactive.com/2014/03/26/thigh-gap-blocked-as-a-hashtag-on-inst…