Actor Khushbu Sundar has pointed at 'fear of missing out' or FOMO as one of the key contributing factors that adds immense strain on the lives of young people and those in the entertainment industry to stay in top shape externally, and in the process fall prey to anxiety, panic attack, depression and a host of other serious health issues.
She said there are two kinds of pressures that people in the entertainment industry face - from within, and from outside.
When people expect you to look a certain way, present yourself in a certain way, whether it's your makeup or clothes, when they expect you to have a designer, a stylist, etc that's what can be called pressures from within the industry, Mr Sundar told NDTV.
"But more than that, I think the pressures are more from the outside world. In today's times, when we talk about social media, this is where the pressure comes from," she said. "... If you're not properly dressed, if one hair is out of place, if your mascara is running down, if you're not wearing your lipstick, then I think the pressure builds up that you don't know how to handle yourself."
"All these are on social media. People in the entertainment industry read the comments and that is where the pressure mounts. So more than the pressure from within the industry, I think the pressure from outside the industry, from the so-called social media platforms, are what amount to anxiety and panic attacks, and depression, and the new term they have got called FOMO, fear of missing out," Ms Sundar, who saw early success as a child artist in Bollywood, told NDTV.
Her comments come amid the discussions on the death of model-actor Shefali Jariwala. While the exact cause of death is yet to be confirmed, findings from the initial medical examination suggested that self-medication and unsupervised anti-ageing treatments, specifically glutathione and vitamin C, may have triggered the cardiac arrest.
Ms Sundar said there was no social media and hence, no pressures of the kind that comes from outside when she was in the industry doing lead roles, and real fans would accept actors as they were.
"... We would just wear a salwar or jeans and a kurta and walk out. Nobody would even bother. And the real fans would be there accepting us as we are. But I have seen these pressures on social platforms about body shaming, about the way they looked at my girls when they were growing up," Ms Sundar said, referring to her two daughters and her parenting experience in the age of social media.
"I saw the kind of pressure, comments and the way people reacted, so I came out of Facebook and told my girls that they were never going back to Facebook. Neither they nor I have been on Facebook since then. But on Instagram... I saw how my girls were ridiculed when they were growing up. They were big girls, taller than their age, tallest in their class... And probably to me, being a mother, it didn't bother me. But then I have seen the kind of pressure my girls went through," Ms Sundar said.
"It was very difficult to make a child understand in their growing up times. But fortunately for me, I was able to handle that and make my children understand that the people who comment, who have these, you know, ideas of being judgmental about the way they look, they're nobody to you. They're absolute strangers. They don't have a face. They don't have a name. You don't know them and you don't have to worry about them. And I was able to put that in my kids' minds. And they're absolutely fine today. They understand how to take the pressure.
"I still don't have a designer. I still don't have a makeup artist. I still don't have somebody who is going to style me when I'm walking into an event or a wedding. I do it by myself and I'm very, very comfortable by myself. I think when you start feeling that I'm going to lose out in this so-called societal pressure or the way I have to present myself, when you're not ready to accept the realities of life, I think this is where the problem starts," Ms Sundar told NDTV.
She respectfully refrained from commenting on the death of model-actor Shefali Jariwala, and also did acknowledge that people taking an anti-ageing regimen is absolutely fine.
"If somebody is happy doing that, there's nothing wrong with it. You know where to stop. That's one thing which you have to learn. You should know where to stop. There are certain things which you start once and it never ends. And that is the fear which I always have. People keep telling me that, oh, you need to get this done. You need to do that. Get that done. I'm saying, let me age gracefully. I have my laugh lines. I have my jowls. I have my crow feet. I'm fine. But if I have to, if I want my skin to glow, if I'm going through a facial, there's nothing wrong with it.
"I go to my skin clinic very regularly, get my regular facials done to see if there are any large pores which need to be treated because all this happens with age. But you should know where to stop. You cannot be totally into that and say that I need a magic wand in my hand and I want to be like a 20 year old at this age. No, you can't be. You have to accept it. You have to learn to accept it," Ms Sundar said.
She suggested going for a regular master health checkup, especially women, and not to focus only on the external but internal too. "This is what most girls miss because they think only appearance is what counts. What is within does not."
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