What makes a person beautiful? In my mind when I picture beauty I picture this size 2 supermodel with long elegant legs. Why do I do this? It is because of all the magazines with these women on the front, giving me unrealistic expectations of what women are supposed to look like.
Society paints this picture of women being tall and very thin creatures, but this is not realistic to what women actually look like! It is unfair to be given these guidelines of how our bodies are supposed to look; especially when the models that are in these magazines don't even look like that themselves. The amount of make-up and Photoshop that is done to these women is unimaginable.
So why does society want us to try and look like something that does not exist? Well the simple answer is: It sells. Many companies are making money off our insecurities, like the make-up companies and the clothing companies.
I'm not saying being "skinny" is a bad thing, because it's not. But there should be more than one type of beauty. People should not be let to think they are not attractive just because they are not as skinny as a supermodel. Size has nothing to do with beauty, and this is what society likes to hide from us.
Though society expects us to desire thinness, this is not the secret to beauty. The true secret to being beautiful is: truly loving yourself. This sounds corny I know, but this is completely true. There is no way you will ever think you are beautiful unless you keep an open mind, and throw away your idea of societal beauty. This does not exist.
Beauty standards are pretty much a universal problem. It's really unfortunate that these types of people of considered beautiful since it's an unnatural and unhealthy beauty. Did you know that South Korea is considered the plastic surgery capital of the world? The most popular procedure is double eyelid surgery because in Asia having big eyes is considered beautiful. When you have to get surgery to meet the beauty standard, you know something is wrong. Anyway, in your opinion, how can we change this unreasonable beauty standard?
ReplyDeleteI'm not too sure if it is something that you can change. If you look at the past, the beauty standards were a lot different then nowadays. I think in time the standards will change to another ridiculous notion of beauty.
DeleteWhat I think is wrong is not that we consider skinny people beautiful (if you really believe that everyone is beautiful, then you can't say that skinny models are not true beauty). I think the problem is that people try to change how they look for the wrong reasons, mostly because there is a lot of pressure for conformity. The thing is, we are not all equal. Some people have nicer features than others, some people have better personalities - that's a fact, and that's the way it is. Some people are born with advantages and some people are not. It's difficult, but I think we should all try to come to terms with the things we can not change, and when we do change things it should be because of inner, personal reasons. For example, if someone wants to lose weight to be a healthier person with a healthier lifestyle, then great, but if a person wants to lose weight because the models in Vogue are skinny, that's bad.
ReplyDeleteI believe that nobody has "bad" features. Some people can dislikes a person's feature, but another person might like it. It all depends on the person you are talking to. Everyone has a different sense of beauty, and different likes and dislikes.
DeleteI agree that society paints a picture of beauty that is entirely wrong and it is mostly driven by the marketing industry. It is always so sad when people with perfectly fine features go out and make adjustments via surgery. Most of the time they end up looking so much worse anyways, it is usually pretty evident... Especially on Michael Jackson. How would you feel if you were someone's parents and your child got plastic surgery? They are essentially saying that you are ugly.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever had a child that had plastic surgery I think I would be very insulted! They would be changing something about them that makes them unique, and attaches them to me.
DeleteIt's amazing how things have changed to influence the perspective on beauty. In the middle ages, the bigger you were, the more attractive you were, because it meant you could afford meat, beer etc. Beauty was wealth. In Victorian times, it was beautiful to have one of those big stupid wigs on (for women and men). In the 20's, the attractive woman was essentially a woman shaped like a man: no curves, short hair. Now we like the thin women with giant bazongas. I wonder what will be considered attractive a century from now? Or even a decade? Look at the hipster revolution, even, and compare it to the American Eagle standard of as few as 5 years ago. Scary stuff!
ReplyDeleteI think it's too bad that there can't be more than one accepted definition of beauty, but as long as media has a say, I think this will always be the case.