The liposuction society: lipophobia as an aesthetic driver and a factor of psychological suffering on social media

Abstract

Aesthetic standards permeate and impose demands on the individual, immersed in the social context, to adapt to the standardization of an ideal body. In this context, lipophobia, considered as an aesthetic and social discourse that imposes negativity on body fat, remains the tonic of a society that establishes, for itself, the thin and “lean mass” indexes as symbols of a healthy. Rooted in the social imagination for a long time, lipophobia finds, in the recent phenomenon of social networks, fertile ground to proliferate as a moralizing maxim. Therefore, the objective of the present work is to investigate the engines that lead not only to the maintenance, but also to the propagation of lipophobia in social networks. From a diagnosis of society and the behavior of subjects immersed in social networks, we seek to address the foundations and motivators of lipophobic discourses, their reasons, their propagation mechanisms, their effects, and also the psychic impacts arising from body aesthetic pressure. By tracing a profile of this liposuction society, we intend to promote debate and discussion about a research locus that has not yet been investigated — social networks — highlighting its importance in the field of public health.