The high school experience can be very diverse, but it also shares common factors for many female students. It’s four years dedicated to finding the right friend group, the most popular shoes, the newest clothes, the trending health fads, all of which can be warped in the span of one influencer changing everyone’s opinion. Unfortunately, this has gone beyond the outfits that a girl wears, but affected the body image of teenage girls as well. 

Although it is believed to have gotten worse through internet exposure, society’s push for an ideal body image for a woman has affected high school girls since before the internet, let alone social media. Kari Heeren, a math teacher at Arroyo Grande High School (AGHS), was a high school student herself from 1983 to 1987. Society’s push for an ideal body image was maintained then through Television Media.

“Thin [was the most desirable image],” Heeren said. “MTV was really big in the 80s. Exposure [to society’s expectations] was through television and movies.”

Sara Osborne, the Vice Principal of AGHS, attended high school from 1998 to 2001, and experienced the same push in body image for women.

“[People] wanted to be super skinny. [People] wanted [their] hip bones to show, like borderline unhealthy was what was in,” Osborne said. 

Shaunna Angell, who attended AGHS from 2009 to 2012 and now teaches at AGHS, said she attended high school before there was a shift in expectations for the female population.

“I feel really fortunate. I was in high school at a time where it was pre-giant butts and big lips,” Angell said. “[For example], the Kardashians, it wasn’t like people were starting to model after that. But it wasn’t the whole anorexia [acceptance] either.”

Kailani Johnson (‘27) is now in the aftermath of the popular Kardashian era that set unrealistic expectations for women.

“[Society’s ideal image] is a small waist, a bigger butt, and bigger boobs,” Johnson said. “Definitely no cellulite, just a slim figure, but also curvy.”

Johnson’s description might sound like an oxymoron, but it is very representative of the unrealistic image that students today feel expected to keep up with. Long-standing, unrealistic expectations have created deeper health concerns for generations of women.

One issue that has affected women’s views on their bodies for generations is that of food.

“I had a friend who had an eating disorder,” Heeren said. “She had some unhealthy behavior around food.”

This generational cycle of a woman’s physical image being a trend has caused many physical and mental health issues.

“[An eating disorder] was more like taboo, like ‘oh yikes,’” Angell said. “It was more of a gossiping point, which is obviously not great, but it definitely wasn’t glamorized.”

The late 90s and early 2000s had a more prominent trend of eating disorders affecting women.

“When I was in [high school, an eating disorder was] just what was normal to me. We hadn’t come to a body positivity time,” Osborne said. “I wasn’t even aware that it wasn’t healthy.”

Now, the topic has become increasingly insensitive in the high school setting. Although eating disorders still exist and have more awareness, students still feel alone and scared to come forward.

“[Eating disorders] are a bit joked about. There’s obviously help for people, but they don’t know how to reach out for help,” Johnson said.

Unlimited exposure to the internet constantly subjects female students to an overload of information, pictures, and unrealistic expectations from edited photos that seem to be real. 

“I hear [students] say ‘Did you see what such and such posted?’” Angell said. “I definitely think [the internet] is more influencing and infiltrating people’s brains.”

Gen Z’s coming of age brings a lot more body positivity and awareness of unrealistic expectations. Although there is a lot more positivity about the female body image, it helps to step away from the idea that body image is what should be focused on.

“The additional message that should be getting communicated to girls [is] that you are so much more than what you look like,” Osborne said. “We should be giving girls [the] message that it actually doesn’t matter if you have a thigh gap or don’t, or if your waist is smaller. That is not who you are.”