The newest online trend to value a certain 'look' instead of health is even more stupid than you'd expect: iPhone 6 knees!

Thursday, April 14, 2016 by: Isabelle Z.
Tags: iPhone 6, knees challenge, self-esteem

---

(NaturalNews) In what is just the latest in a slew of stupid internet memes, women are photographing themselves with iPhones across their knees to demonstrate how slim they are.

The trend is particularly popular in China, where countless photos taken by women participating in the "challenge" have been posted on Chinese microblogging site Weibo.

This same platform is also believed to be behind the A4 waist challenge, another stupid idea that is ruining people's body images around the world. In this ill-advised challenge, women photograph themselves with a sheet of A4-sized paper across their waists to show how slim they are. If their entire waist is obscured behind the sheet, they have somehow "won" the challenge.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. There has also been the collarbone coin challenge, in which women balance rolls of coins in the hollows between their collarbones and necks to show off how much their collarbones protrude. Earlier this year, the under-boob pen challenge had women tucking pens under their breasts. According to this challenge, if the pen doesn't fall out, you're "a real woman."

Last year, countless girls trying to get plumped-up lips like those of Kylie Jenner took part in a similarly idiotic challenge in which they sucked on shot glasses or bottles to puff their lips up. Many of them ended up with injuries as a result.

Young people are feeling more pressure than ever to look perfect, as celebrities post photos of themselves on social media all day long. These pictures are often heavily Photoshopped or filtered, and these people also have a team of experts at their disposal to ensure they look their best at all times. Unfortunately, young girls are desperate to look like these celebrities no matter what the cost to their health, and many of them are developing eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia that are difficult to treat.

Too few women are speaking out

Some women are counteracting these negative messages, but there are not enough of them to drown out the voices of self-doubt that are plaguing impressionable minds. For example, women outraged at the A4 waist challenge have taken to photographing themselves holding their college diplomas in front of their waists in order to prove that women are much more than their figures. Of course, these women are greatly outnumbered by those taking part in these unhealthy, ridiculous challenges.

The founder of the Self-Esteem Team campaigning group, Natasha Devon MBE, told the UK's Independent: "I think it's incredibly frustrating that for all the talk about women being objectified by multi-billion-pound corporations and a still fundamentally patriarchal society, they then choose to objectify themselves in this way."

Beauty at any cost?

The problem is only likely to worsen, as society becomes even more image-conscious thanks to social media. How many girls are starving themselves so they can win challenges like the iPhone knees one? Women already take a lot of health risks in their quest for beauty. Every year, we hear stories of women who have died from dangerous beauty procedures.

Two years ago, Natural News reported about an Atlanta woman who died after getting a silicone embolism in her lungs, following buttock injections administered by someone who falsely represented herself as a nurse.

Breast augmentation is the most common cosmetic surgery procedure in the country. Women routinely place their desire for bigger breasts over their own health. Implants are known to rupture and need to be removed every ten years, requiring even further operations.

Augmentation itself is a major surgery, which carries the risks of any surgery, such as those attached to the use of anesthesia and the risk of infection. The same can be said for many of the other procedures women undergo, including nose reshaping, liposuction, tummy tucks and eyelid surgery.

It is going to take a serious effort to turn this situation around, and until then, more and more women are going to get hurt trying to attain some unreachable level of beauty. As for the iPhone knees challenge, one can only hope that this trend will go away before the much smaller 4-inch iPhone SE comes out.

Sources include:

Today.com

Independent.co.uk

NaturalNews.com

Science.NaturalNews.com