After being bombarded with Photoshopped images and media ads every day, feeling like you live up to society’s tough beauty standards is hard enough. Wouldn’t it be nice to know for sure how you measured up against the models plastered on TV screens all around you? Luckily (or unluckily), Chinese Weibo bloggers have come up with some interesting ways to actually figure out if you’re beautiful and healthy or not—all you need are some items you can find around your dorm room, like a sheet of A4 paper and a handful of small coins. The first fitness test you might encounter on a journey into China’s largest blogging platform is the popular “A四腰,” which literally means “A4 Waist.” Girls looking to prove their beauty hold a piece of A4 paper vertically up to their waist. If their waist can be fully covered by the paper – which measures 8.27 inches – then they can consider themselves “thin.” The A4 Waist test isn’t the only “fitness test” the Chinese internet has churned out. There’s also the slightly older trend called “反手摸肚脐,” translating roughly as “touching your belly button around your waist.” This trend involves reaching one hand around your back and trying to, well, touch your belly button. It’s supposed to be an indicator of physical fitness and flexibility. This trend was closely followed by “锁骨放硬币,” a bizarre trend characterized by balancing coins on your collarbones. Both tests are advertised as beauty and health standards, and if you can complete them successfully (one actress Lv Jiarong balanced 80 coins on her collarbones) then you get the title of “beautiful.”After hearing about these tests, the only thing I could do was try them myself. I can’t touch my belly button from behind, and I can only balance coins on my collarbones if I hunch my shoulders forward a lot, which probably isn’t the Chinese definition of beauty. Does failing these tests mean that I’m not skinny enough? Though the media and internet certainly want me to think so, it would certainly be ironic considering every doctor that I’ve been to has categorized me as ‘underweight’. In reality, however, these tests are not real tests of one’s beauty or fitness. Along with the box gap ‘beauty trend’ of 2012, these tools are nothing new. They’re just tools for body-shaming. Girls and women who see these posts, along with pictures of hundreds of women successfully completing them, feel inadequate. The effects are profound: in a study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, 40 percent of nine and ten-year-old girls have tried to lose weight (these girls are in fourth grade). 78 percent of girls are unhappy with their bodies at the age of seventeen. One in ten college-aged women suffers from a clinical eating disorder. Of course, body image issues affect boys and men as well, but most media and online beauty trends focus on women. Anorexia, self-doubt, obsessive dieting – the negative effects that the media and these beauty trends have on girls is endless. It’s easy to dismiss weird online beauty trends as a joke or a silly fad. But the effects that they have are very real. They represent a larger and more destructive beauty culture—one where no one is good enough or skinny enough for the next trend. If you pass the collarbone test, you might not pass the A4 Waist test, and where does that leave you? The cycle is a dangerous one, and instead of devising impossible beauty standards, people should use their power on social media to uplift others. There are all sorts of beauty, and women (and men!) of all body shapes and types should be appreciated, not just the ones who can hide behind a sheet of A4. This article was written by Savannah Billman. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: The Mirror.co.uk