Towards the end of the summer body?

“The perfect body is waiting for you”. What if this injunction was relegated to the closet? Each summer period, the same objective comes up on social networks, that of the “summer body”. This term is used to describe a lean and muscular body, the one we proudly display during the summer holidays.

But according to a recent survey conducted by Pinterest among its users and their uses, research on diets and weight loss is in freefall compared to the previous year. According to the photo-sharing social network, which had 478 million active users in 2021, searches containing the term ‘weight loss’ fell by 20% between July 2021 and May 2022.

On the other hand, between mid-April and mid-May, searches with the term “quick and healthy meals” increased 65 times. Searches with the term “healthy food motivation” increased 13 times. These results are published while the platform has banned since July 2021 all advertisements related to weight loss ads.

Body positive in force

Research to learn to accept one’s body is on the increase. This is the case for the term “body positive”, which has twice as many searches, as well as the term “body reference with curves” whose searches have been multiplied by five. Searches for “quotes to accept your body” are three times more numerous.

the “body positive” comes as a reaction to this search for the perfect body. This movement, created in 1996 in the United States, aims to be inclusive, bringing together all types of morphologies. Since the 2010s, this movement has been heard on social networks. In 2016, the hashtag bodypositve accumulated more than 6 million mentions on the Instagram network, making it one of the most used and popular. Today, it seems to be gradually becoming part of people’s mentalities.