by Natalie Fornasier, Brielle Burns and Rayane Tamer |
There have been active calls by social media users and health experts to dismiss emerging body image trend, #TobleroneTunnel.
The hashtag began late last month and since then, social media users have taken to Twitter and Instagram to showcase their ‘toblerone tunnel’.
Dubbed as the ‘new thigh gap’, the ‘toblerone tunnel’ refers to the triangular shaped gap just below a woman’s crotch. This part of the body, where no skin touches or overlaps, comes to resemble a piece of Toblerone chocolate.
However, this new trend is far from sweet, with critics and organisations concerned about how such hashtags can negatively influence Australian youth. Dietitian and co-founder of Body Positive Australia, Fiona Sutherland said: “Women [need to] make efforts to not engage as much in conversations which are focused around appearance, weight or shape.”
“When people are aware of how we can be significantly influenced by what we see [in the media] we can… gently remind ourselves that comparing isn't helpful when we're trying to work on feeling good in the body we have.”
This follows the fact that young Australians have highlighted body image as one of their top three concerns for six consecutive years, according to Mission Australia’s National Youth Survey.
This is the case for 17-year-old Kaitlin Merhi, who finds herself victim to the social media trends that target body image.
“[The trends] often make me question myself and the way in which the particular physique or mindset circulating would suit me and my lifestyle,” Kaitlin said.
“I myself am guilty of trying to be somebody else. In a society where such unrealistic goals are constantly circulating, it’s hard not to be.”
Instagram has taken the lead in attempting to improve this approach by banning 114,000 different hashtags for users to slot into their captions, including #bikinibody, #lingerie and #curvygirls.
But UTS Professor Maryanne Dever believes that social media is “an active force in the constitution of embodied subjectivity”, with the regulation of these trends dismissing the bigger picture.
She said: “[social media] doesn’t so much ‘influence’ pre-existing social subjects as play an active role in producing those subjects.”
“The debates [surrounding] regulation of social media tend to miss this important point.”
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