Category: TV & Radio

Chatting about how the perceptions of the perfect body and young women’s positive body image has been dramatically and adversely affected with the advent of social media, especially over the last 10 years.
.
Back in the day – in the 1970s, the decade in which my novel “Secrets in the Dark” is set – young women would have scrutinised their bodyshapes in the mirror, wishing they could have been slimmer, taller or even bigger breasted – looking more like their favourite model or pop star – and addressed their issues with a dramatic diet or some slimming pills.

They never had the pressure of negative online peer judgement and the skewed perceptions of online reality versus real life, causing comparison anxiety, unrealistic ideals of perfection and mental health issues.

Chatting  on BBC Radio Leeds with Stephanie Hirst
on
Body image
And
Mental health
And how these same issues affected the protagonist Phoebe in my debut novel “Secrets in the Dark” even in 1970’s before the advent of social media.