Belly Button Challenge Goes Viral — Have You Tried It?

Have you tried the belly button challenge? The latest trend to go viral is a lot like the Kylie Jenner challenge, except it doesn’t involve suctioning one’s lips until they blow up beyond what’s socially acceptable. The Business Standard reports that this viral meme focuses on showing off how skinny you are by reaching one arm completely behind your back and around your waist from the opposite side in order to touch your bellybutton.

This new trend is also attracting negative attention, unsurprisingly, because of the impact it could have on already impressionable young people. Keep in mind that memes such as the Kylie Jenner challenge showed that teens are willing to try just about anything, even to their own detriment, to mimic and emulate what everyone else is doing.

The Glow writes that this is not a trend people should imitate. It began in China, or rather on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. Now people across the world are trying to touch their bellybuttons by reaching behind their backs. What fun! Unfortunately, a clinical psychologist and founder of Sydney Practice says this is all just a bad idea.

“It’s like the bikini bridge, or the thigh gap – it’s yet another way of judging and scrutinizing our bodies, and putting it on social media is going to add to this big bucket of damage that we’re doing to our body image.”

Clearly this isn’t the only dangerous beauty trend, as mentioned in the above quote. People of all ages are still trying to achieve the sought-after thigh gap, even though it is biologically impossible for some body types. Now the belly button challenge has spilled from Chinese social media to the Western world, which is already largely image obsessed as it is.

Would you ever try the belly button challenge? Writers at The Glow declare that this challenge is not at all scientific and unproven. Furthermore, they believe that success at this particular challenge probably doesn’t have much at all to do with someone’s figure, but more to do with arm length and flexibility. In other words the belly button challenge appears to be just another one of those viral examples of the out-of-this-world beauty standards that are influencing easy-to-influence people. Hopefully these folks all wise up to the negative impact this challenge could have before it ends up getting out of hand.

Photo: Image via Weibo (Chinese Twitter)