Candela Yatche

Candela’s goal is to create a society where future generations can grow up free from the damaging effects of aesthetic violence, leading to improved physical, psychological, and social well-being.

Candela Yatche’s vision for society is one where individuals, particularly women, are liberated from ‘aesthetic violence,’ the oppressive beauty standards that dictate their value and worth. She aims to dismantle the pervasive issue of social pressure towards body image, which exerts immense pressure on women to conform to unrealistic beauty ideals that frequently end in eating disorders and mental health problems.

Candela views body dissatisfaction as a systemic issue rooted in the lack of diversity in body representation. Rather than addressing body dissatisfaction—predominantly affecting women—through self-love initiatives, she has identified who is making money off this messaging and deliberately targeted working with them, to stop the message at the source. At the same time, her work also focuses on educating and raising awareness by fostering a critical understanding and acting capacity towards the phenomenon, especially in adolescents.

Candela’s strategy works through three main areas. Her organization, Bellamente, conducts research with the University of Buenos Aires that feeds into all educational and cultural change efforts held by Bellamente. Since one of the direct consequences of beauty mandates and the prevalence of culture of perfect bodies is eating disorders, Candela proposes bridging the medical and mental health fields, which are more treatment-focused, with her approach around education and mass communication for prevention. Unlike prevailing approaches, which work on the results of aesthetic violence, this strategy leverages technology and social media to engage a broad audience with fresh and informal language to address the sociocultural factors that perpetuate the problem.

Bellamente has organically built a community of over 280,000 users through social media with whom they maintain a close, continuous learning relationship. This is complemented by their work with schools nationwide, providing tools to develop a new critical perspective on aesthetic standards and their consequences and encouraging a change in behaviors around the appreciation of body diversity and self-expression. Through these school initiatives, they have reached 2,000 teachers and 120,000 adolescents with a program that speaks to young people in their own language.

Bellamente also collaborates with companies in the beauty industry and beauty-focused editorial sectors. By providing them with relevant information from their research and awareness-raising actions, Candela is influencing their communication campaigns to promote healthier, more inclusive messages and contribute to the paradigm shift needed to counteract the pressure generated by images and messages that reinforce hegemonic beauty canons. Candela fosters strategic partnerships with key organizations like UNFPA, UNICEF, and others to extend the reach of their programs to diverse audiences. Notably, their collaboration with Meta includes advocacy efforts to identify and change the elements in the design of social media platforms that reinforce dangerous stereotypes and fostering long-term cultural change by empowering adolescents and young people to critically navigate these platforms. Her comprehensive approach not only addresses the symptoms of aesthetic violence but also targets the underlying societal structures perpetuating these harmful norms by promoting mental health, gender equality, and social acceptance towards diversity in body image and expression of sexuality.

Aesthetic violence is a new definition of the pressure exerted on people, primarily women and minorities, to conform to standards of beauty. Now increasingly enhanced by the effect of advertising and social networks, it is a deeply ingrained societal issue that pressures people to conform to unrealistic beauty standards, significantly impacting their self-esteem, mental health, and social interactions, leading in many cases to eating disorders. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in Argentina, where media and cultural norms heavily influence perceptions of beauty. Although recent data is lacking, figures from Aluba (Association Against Bulimia and Anorexia) indicate that 70% of Argentine women are unhappy with their bodies, with 60% expressing a desire to lose weight. Argentina ranks as the country with the second-highest prevalence of eating disorders globally.

Social media exacerbates the issue by promoting unattainable beauty ideals through digitally altered images and diet challenges. Influencers often reinforce stereotypes that equate slim, toned bodies with health, impacting the self-image of young people. Additionally, influencers who have become references for adolescents on issues of body image and well-being have commercial interests in their recommendations that frequently conflict with the real health of their followers, compromising the integrity of their recommendations. A recent leak from Facebook’s team revealed that more than 40% of Instagram users acknowledged that their feelings of unattractiveness began while using the app.

Teachers and schools lack programs and tools to address the challenges of eating disorders and body image and digital violence that is enhanced by social media. Although Comprehensive Sexual Education (ESI), established in 2009, could address this issue, its implementation varies widely across provinces due to ideological and religious opposition, leading to inconsistent approaches and failing to prepare the students to care for their health and have the skills for analyzing the media culture critically around the body and overall physical appearance. The stigma surrounding eating disorders further complicates effective discussion in educational settings, highlighting the need for more robust interventions.

The cosmetic industry, driven by significant financial stakes, perpetuates these beauty standards by marketing products and procedures that promise to “fix” perceived flaws. Advertising strategies often highlight “defects” and offer “magical” solutions, creating a continuous consumption loop. This industry operates with minimal regulatory oversight, leading to misinformation and the early use of potentially harmful products.

Cultural narratives prioritize physical appearance, reinforcing the importance of adhering to beauty standards. These norms are perpetuated through family, peer groups, and societal expectations, making it difficult for individuals to resist them. The pressure to conform to beauty standards has significant mental health implications, contributing to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. The financial cost of maintaining these standards is substantial, with women spending significant amounts on aesthetic products and procedures, often at the expense of other essential needs. The economic situation in Argentina further limits access to mental health treatments, leaving many women without the necessary support.

The lack of a culture that values diversity in bodies and body positive standards also leads to social exclusion and discrimination. In educational settings, physical appearance is a primary reason for bullying, affecting academic performance. In the workplace, image-related discrimination is prevalent, with “good presence” requirements masking deeper biases. In romantic and sexual relationships, aesthetic appeal often dictates interactions, marginalizing those who do not meet prevailing beauty standards.

In response to the lack of social acceptance of body, sexual and gender diversity, and its impact on the overall health of adolescent women and marginalized groups in Argentina and beyond, Candela harnesses the power of social media to turn it into an ally in addressing this escalating issue. Her approach centers on speaking the language of adolescents and young adults, using their preferred channels to offer new insights and foster a critical understanding and acting towards the phenomenon. Her approach creatively integrates knowledge of mental health, technology, and communication to achieve a broad and impactful reach, changing behaviors around aesthetics and body-mind care and promoting a new culture around this.

Bellamente, the organization founded by Candela in 2018, addresses the issue by skillfully integrating essential tools and captivating diverse audiences from adolescents, schools and teachers, to publishers, businesses, and tech companies, along with the implementation of advocacy initiatives.

Fostering critical advertising literacy skills among teens so they can effectively navigate digital environments and resist the pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty ideals is a central goal of Bellamente. The issues related to body image pressure and its impact on health are not adequately addressed in schools. To promote lasting change, Candela and her team created a workshop for schools that strengthens teachers’ abilities to deal with the problem and provides adolescents with tools to work on aesthetic violence, digital violence, and preventive resources for eating disorders and mental health. The workshops help teachers better understand the digital world that students navigate, creating spaces for reflection on these challenges. They also affect the teachers themselves, revealing how ingrained beauty standards are for teachers themselves, which can hinder their ability to effectively intervene. Bellamente has reached over 120,000 adolescents and 2,000 teachers through its educational workshops in Argentina. Educators play a pivotal role in shaping young minds and can either perpetuate or challenge harmful beauty standards. By engaging with both adolescents and educators, Bellamente aims to foster a more inclusive and accepting environment in schools, where diversity in body, sexual, and gender identity is celebrated.

To federalize the programs and install capacity in schools throughout the country, Candela is forming a network of workshop teachers who are trained to replicate the workshop and not depend on the Bellamente team being able to travel to the interior of the country. The network already has 30 workshop teachers. In addition, they are promoting a link with the Ministry of Education so that the contents of Bellamente are included in the framework of the existing Comprehensive Sexual Education (ESI), and thus contribute to improving the scope and quality of said law.

Working with data and research is key to Candela’s approach for changing culture around body image – using data to curate different strategies for each constituency. To this end, she assembled a research team with her former professor at the University of Buenos Aires’ Faculty of Psychology to produce data that would allow them to position the topic in a rigorous manner. The team worked with samples of 8,000 people and investigated key topics such as: the impact of Instagram and its relationship with body image dissatisfaction, the role of sociocultural pressures on women’s body image and masculinities, and aesthetic demands. Bellamente then uses this data, repackaged into social media content, and shared in online community exchanges, and trainings for media, companies and schools. Candela uses memes and visual resources to structure messages, breaking down conversations and situations involving celebrities who interest young people. This approach allows adolescents to share their experiences, concerns, and opinions. The content is overseen by Bellamente’s professional team, who monitor situations that may require special attention.

These investigations caught the attention of Meta’s policy area, allowing Candela to position herself and Bellamente as expert partners on body image and mental health, raising internal awareness around digital violence and advocating for more responsible business practices within the industry. Although there is still a long way to go regarding the necessary changes, Candela has achieved some significant victories to date. Among them, she is one of seven members in a working group comprised of global organizations advising Meta on how to mitigate the negative effects of the social network on the mental health and body image of adolescents. Candela and Bellamente are advising teams of programmers on the design of profile avatars that represent a broader and more realistic depiction of users. Through work with Meta and the National Ministry of Health, they developed a federal map of centers for care of eating disorders, promoting greater access to treatment when required and a guide for caregivers of people with eating disorders that appears to people searching for words related to negative body image. The map and guide for caregivers of individuals with eating disorders is also available on the Bellamente website, and in 2024 alone, it was downloaded by 3,500 people. Currently, Bellamente is collaborating with Meta to develop an alert system that identifies users searching the web for terms related to eating disorders, providing them with a map of treatment centers and guidelines for accessing care. Candela will continue to strengthen her relationship with Meta since each small victory, such as the change in the appearance of the avatars they use on social networks or other similar measures, positively impacts millions of adolescents around the world.

Bellamente’s corporate training program helps companies identify and address biases in hiring processes and internal policies related to body image and aesthetic violence. This initiative targets the corporate sector, aiming to create more inclusive workplaces that do not perpetuate the problem. The foundation collaborates with companies to develop training modules and workshops that educate employees about the harmful effects of beauty standards and promote diversity and inclusion within companies’ protocols. For example, a partnership with a major corporation led to the development of a comprehensive training program that reached over 1,000 employees. This program not only educated employees about aesthetic violence but also resulted in changes to the company’s hiring practices avoiding discrimination against body image and gender.

Her awareness-raising and educational work extends to the public sphere, where she develops training for public officials on digital violence (much of it based on people’s looks and beauty standards) and its consequences to influence provincial public policies. She has already worked with the Government of the Province of Jujuy; the Council’s Help Centers in the territory (there are a total of 14 centers); the National Ministry of Women’s Rights Bringing Together Program and the Municipal Directorate of Women, Gender and Diversity.

Media advocacy is another key program of Bellamente, aimed at challenging harmful messages in media and promoting more inclusive representation. This initiative targets media outlets and social media platforms, advocating for responsible and inclusive content. Bellamente collaborates with media organizations to develop guidelines for inclusive representation and works with social media platforms to mitigate their negative impact on mental health. They have managed to change some harmful practices by the media, with magazines such as Gente, Paparazzi, Para Ti, classic reproducers of social mandates. After going through Bellamente’s training, these outlets stopped publishing articles about diets and related topics on their digital platforms.

Bellamente’s community media engagement and school initiatives are designed to encourage critical reflection on consumption habits and how they portray body image. This program targets women and adolescents, aiming to shift mindsets and promote acceptance of body, sexual, and gender diversity. The foundation also leverages social media platforms to reach a broad audience, with over 280,000 active followers on Instagram and messages reaching 25 million users since 2018. By creating a supportive online community, Bellamente activates an important group of changemakers who take the messages and information that Bellamente publishes and make them their own, multiplying their presence on networks and in offline life. An example is their Instagram feature, “Bellamente Achievement of the Week.” This weekly post invites followers to share their personal journeys—whether small or significant—in rebuilding a healthy relationship with their bodies. By showcasing these stories, the feature inspires others, fosters a sense of community, and highlights the shared experience of overcoming body shame and societal pressures. These narratives not only encourage participation but also shed light on the systemic nature of aesthetic violence.

In their social media channels, Candela creatively applies her knowledge in cognitive behavioral therapies to campaigns and daily content that also uses humor and visual resources to capture attention on different topics related to hegemonic beauty standards and its consequences. As examples, in 2022, with the support of UNFPA Argentina, they developed a comprehensive program to prevent digital violence due to gender issues. Through different communication pieces, they sought to raise awareness about the issue and its impact on people’s mental health. The audiovisual content was replicated in more than 10 media outlets across the country and reached more than 600,000 people. Another creative initiative was developed within the Martín Fierro Awards (a national television event) in 2022, where they interviewed entertainment personalities who face hate speech daily and made the problem visible to more than 500,000 Instagram users. They also developed the Eating Disorders Awareness Week in partnership with NEDA (National Eating Disorders Academy) an information campaign during the week of February 27, 2023 that aimed to unite forces between organizations to provide valid, clear and current information on the issue, both among Spanish-speaking and English-speaking audiences.

It is important to highlight that the dissemination of the content developed by Bellamente is organic; they do not use commercial advertising because they believe in the strength of their network and in the independence and legitimacy that this strategy, which is not conditioned by commercial interests, provides them.

The online work is complemented by face-to-face meetings. Once a year they hold the Bellamente Festival, where they meet off-screen with their community, and invite artists and activists to share spaces for reflection. A special moment of the meeting is the prejudice-free catwalk, where everyone is invited to parade. More than 5,000 people participated in the events. Candela is fostering a culture of empathy and acceptance, challenging the pervasive beauty standards that harm mental health and perpetuate inequality.

The Argentine Sizing Law (Law 27.521) proposed establishing a Single Standardized Clothing Size System (SUNIT). Its objective is to ensure that garments are manufactured and sold in a range of sizes that accurately reflect the actual body measurements of the Argentine population. In 2019, Candela used the Festival to promote the Size Law that includes diversity and respect for all bodies. At the Festival, months before the law was passed, Candela worked with the Anybody organization to raise awareness at the event about the importance of the Size Law, promoting a petition on Change.org. The law successfully passed in 2019 but there is still a long way to go before it is widely enforced. In this regard, Candela continues with awareness and educational campaigns to keep the issue on the agenda. Candela is a recognized expert on her topic. Among many other public spaces, in 2023, she participated together with UNFPA Argentina in the digital violence congress at the Organization of American States (OAS) to reflect on and build a regional Model Law that aims to prevent, punish and eradicate gender violence facilitated by technology.

Bellamente is a non-profit organization legally established in 2021. With great achievements for an early-stage organization, Candela plans to scale her impact by expanding its educational programs in Argentina and beyond. Candela continues to incorporate her research into developing new educational materials and seeks to create a broader and more inclusive curriculum that addresses aesthetic violence and promotes body, sexual, and gender diversity. This approach builds on the growing awareness and demand for inclusive education, aiming to create systemic changes in how beauty standards are taught and perceived in schools. Candela also aims to deepen her work with Meta with AI tools for the early detection of eating disorders. Bellamente plans to leverage advancements in technology to create innovative solutions that can identify early signs of eating disorders and provide timely interventions. Candela also aims to address the lack of statistics and visibility of eating disorders within the LGBTQI+ community and other marginalized groups.

Candela grew up in a very entrepreneurial and socially driven family that greatly influenced her development in adolescence and youth. Her mother is a social entrepreneur who works in promoting stories of social impact through Lado H, a digital media outlet. Candela participated in volunteer work alongside her mother and other social organizations learning to understand diversity and social problems through different lenses.

During her adolescence, Candela became aware for the first time of the aesthetic violence to which she and her friends were exposed. After finishing school, three of her closest friends had to begin treatment for eating disorders. This situation triggered a research process by Candela that led her to her vocational choice as a psychologist. Her curious and entrepreneurial spirit led her to train in topics related to eating disorders and to attend medical conferences on the subject outside Argentina at just 21 years old. Her intention was to surround herself with people who were specialists in the subject and access training that would allow her to approach the subject with a good academic grounding. While attending university, she discovered that the problem with body image and rejection of one’s own image was something not just enabled but actively encouraged by culture and the beauty industry and present in every corner.

The first thing Candela did was open an Instagram account to express her discomfort with the situation. Bellamente quickly and organically became a space for real and virtual dialogue and education, forming a network of people challenging beauty stereotypes. Candela developed a very close relationship with the network, especially after she was invited to a TEDx Talk where she spoke about “redefining the concept of beauty” to over 10,000 people. With the clear objective of questioning the roots of the problem, in 2021 Candela created a non-profit association to take the solution much further and deeper. Although the initiative is very young, Candela managed to position the issue in Argentina when it was not yet established as a visible social problem. Bellamente positioned itself as a reference organization among key actors and plans to deepen its role in responsible and massive communication for new generations who spend a large part of their days in digital environments.

In addition to leading the community, Candela has written two books: Bellamente and Consumidas. The books explore the impact of consumer culture on body image and mental health, particularly in young women. They examine how media-driven beauty standards harm self-esteem and contribute to eating disorders. Through her personal insights and her work with Bellamente, Candela offers tools to challenge these pressures and foster a healthier relationship with one’s body. Candela sees this as a global problem and has a firm vocation to contribute to its solution with a fresh, committed and ambitious perspective, and will not stop until she achieves her goals.