Arissa Interview

The conversation discusses the influence of social media, specifically TikTok and Instagram, on body image and weight loss trends. The speakers share personal experiences with pressure to conform to societal standards of thinness, including unhealthy dieting practices and excessive exercise. They highlight the harmful impact on mental and physical health, such as eating disorders and other health issues. The normalization of these behaviors on college campuses is also mentioned, with an emphasis on the need for more awareness and understanding of the complexities surrounding weight loss and body image issues. Hi Arissa, how are you doing? I'm good. Hi Katie, how are you? Good. So I have some questions for you today about the whole heroin sheet, if you know what that is, and like how ozempic has been influencing people to lose dramatic amounts of weight. So when did you first notice like the ultra-thin trend kind of stirring up again around you, if you have noticed it? I want to say maybe like a year ago. That's when I became more aware that everyone was losing so much weight, even just people from high school or like here. And it was kind of jarring because I feel like it was the standard to be like thick, but now it's like not. Yeah, I definitely noticed that too. How do you think social media like TikTok, Instagram, all of that has kind of influenced this whole change and like how has that made you feel about yourself and like your body image? Yeah, it's definitely like TikTok. I see a lot of influencers like self-consciously promoting like eating disorders and like their content, like oh what I eat in a day or like how much they work out and like that can definitely like have an impact on girls like viewing the content to think like oh they need to eat this way, oh they need to work out this much. Just to be skinny, but like a lot of the time there's like so many factors like genetic factors like that you also need to like attribute to their weight. Yeah, definitely. And how often, if at all, do you talk about like dieting or working out with your friends, especially with Halloween coming up and all of the different college events? Yeah, personally I try not to because like it's a very sensitive topic and like I try not to criticize myself like verbally, you know. But yeah, I feel like Halloween like it's definitely like a pressure to look a certain way and you hear so many girls and like oh I need to like lose like five, ten pounds like sit into like a mini corset like so like it's a certain event. Or like I feel like that's also really common for like if you need to fit into a dress like just dieting or like even just starving themselves for like a few days which is not healthy. So yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree. And do you have any specific moments when you felt like a sort of pressure to change like your habits like exercising more or like eating healthier which just kind of means like not eating at all? Yeah, definitely after my freshman year I gained about 20 pounds. Like my freshman year I went up to 15 pounds like the freshman 15 and that was so hard because like I didn't realize like everything that was like contributing to my body and I wasn't even working out like the dining hall food like all of that. And then I really became aware of it in the summer and that's when I started like to really just like walk like I was not necessarily like not eating but I would just like be more conscious of what I was eating. And then when I came back to college I was like so afraid of like losing all that like weight back so then I was constantly in the gym and that like got mixed in with my academics because it was like my weight or my education and like for that semester I chose like my weight. And then the next semester I like took Adderall and so then I lost like another 15 pounds. So it's like always fluctuating and it's like there's such like a standard of like being skinny that I feel like it's not talked enough about in like teenage girls. And do you think it's like cultures been trying to kind of normalize on campus or do you think a lot of girls are kind of like unfazed by it? I think on campus it's probably not super talked about because it's kind of like a lot of girls don't want to admit that they're insecure you know but it's really common like for girls to like be insecure and like a lot of times they project it which is sad but yeah. Yeah I agree. And is there like anything that you wish like more people understood about the topic and like how it's impacted girls' lives like boys or teenagers kind of brought more attention to it? Yeah there's so many factors that contribute into like eating disorders and like losing weight like that are not talked about like such as like hair loss, like you're tired, you're fatigued, like your body kind of just shuts down a little bit like brain fog and it's like losing your like healthiness worth being a certain weight or like having a certain look. So yeah but it's just sad. It's just sad yeah. Thank you so much for your time. Yes. Thank you for having me.