The Current Trends Of Beauty Essay

It is no secret that today’s society defines beauty as thin, long-legged women with statuesque bodies. Examples are found everywhere just by glancing at the closest magazine ads or by scrolling down the latest fashion article online. Normal, everyday women are being forgotten and tossed aside to make room for the “Top-Model”-like women currently crowding up Hollywood. Media depicts women as an unattainable image. They pressure ladies to buy the products they’re advertising; luring them with false advertisements promising that with it, they too could be perfect. While the media portrays women in a certain way for advertising and marketing benefits, it has caused numerous negatives effects to women’s self-esteems nationwide, it contradicts

Expectations on women to appear a certain way remain evident in society since the beginning of time. The evidence lies in the modern surge of eating disorders, cosmetic surgery, and excessive makeup application. All further enforced by stick-thin, photoshopped models and celebrities in media. Now more than ever, societal pressures regarding beauty lead women to take extreme actions.

Throughout their lives, women of all ages are constantly being bombarded with advertisements convincing them they must meet an ideal of the perfect body image. This is all thanks to companies that share a common goal to influence the mainstream population into believing they need to purchase certain products in order to compare to the impossible standards set by the beauty industry. In Dave Barry’s “Beauty and the Beast” he displays that it is planted in young girls minds that they need to look, dress, feel, and even act a certain way. However, men aren’t as affected by these capitalistic marketing schemes. In short, the media has affected the way women think of themselves.

One way that Victoria’s Secret influences body image is by changing body image ideals. One hundred years ago the idea of a “perfect body” was not the same as it is today. With the growth of the advertising industry, there has been a shift toward the idea that being “perfect” includes being tall and skinny with flawless hair and skin. Although this may seem appealing, it is not realistic. Victoria’s Secret has contributed to this notion by displaying only the thinnest and most attractive models in their ads. They use these models to make it seem as though looking thin and having zero flaws is normal. One example of this is Victoria’s Secret “Perfect Body Campaign”. This ad displays perfectly thin model wearing a new line of

“The average fashion model is over six feet tall and weighs well under 120 pounds.[ In actuality] the average American woman is five feet four inches and weighs 140 pounds and that less than 5 percent of all women have the body type they see in magazines” (Persson, 2012). The fact that women compare themselves to a standard of beauty that only 5% of all women actually have is quite shocking. The representation of women in the media has been set to such unreasonable levels that women feel they aren't beautiful if they don't meet those standards. When did beauty become defined by numbers on a scale? By today's standards, beauty is described by a person's physical appeal. The media's role in the representation

Since the rise of mass media in America throughout the 20th century, the idea of feminine beauty has changed significantly, especially women’s body shape. American visual media has always been guilty of promoting the current “ideal” women’s body shape, despite these body shapes being virtually impossible for the average American woman to achieve. By analyzing the way that the “ideal” women’s body shape in America has changed, it becomes clear how the media has always kept a tight grasp on the American woman’s individuality. Between 1900 and 1910, popular culture made way for the “Gibson Girl,” who was created by the iconic artist Charles Dana Gibson.

Writing for the Huffington Post, Temimah Zucker presents her opinion on society’s expectation for women in America through different forms of communication and advertisement. Zucker’s article is based off of what you as a woman, think of yourself, versus what society thinks of you. Zucker believes that society’s opinions and beliefs will constantly change through the generations, but your thoughts about your own beauty will not become gray to you; “Beauty is molded by society -- by the advertising, fashion, and cosmetic industries. We live in a society of billboards and ads, Photoshop, and Botox. We are trained to believe that size two is perfect, while most healthy women in America fit into a size 12.” (1)

Women of all ages, especially numerous college-age women embrace unlikely ideals of what their body size and shape essentially should be. These ideas can be in cooperation physically and emotionally corrupt; without them even apprehending the damage they causes themselves. Most women typically want to look their finest try to excel in their goals, jobs, and more just by being beautiful. There are billions of products and even procedures, such as plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery, and surgeries to place on permanent makeup, which is available and advertised in the daily media. And all of these advertisements claim that they can help women accomplish these goals of their desired “ideal of beauty”. This is a problem that we can bluntly see within today’s culture. What our society reflects as their view of beauty, has the tendency to change, erratically. And this means that our pursuit of beauty tends to be lifelong and we will be subjected to the fancies of trendsetters, media, and fashion industries on a daily

Beauty standards are an extremely critical issue facing young women today across the country. Beauty standards are changing the way we perceive ourselves. Beauty standards change the way we dress, our make-up, our hair, and our size. We think about what others will think based on how we look. In the morning, while getting dressed, we may say to ourselves, “What will they think?” or “Is this shirt too tight? Too loose?” We wonder if our hair is the right color, or if our teeth are white enough, and the largest standard of all, if we are skinny enough. In a short clip, “Beauty Standards Around the World,” created by Buzzfeed (2014) shows how each country defines beauty. Buzzfeed uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos and logos to effectively convince the viewers that society is manipulating women’s perception of beauty. A young girl sent out a photo with no make-up on and her hair pulled back to photo shop experts around the world. The results were upsetting.

Every year, millions of people are displeased with their outward appearance. The media presents society with unrealistic body types promoting people, especially women, to look like them. We spend so much time trying to look like what society wants, that we begin to see others and ourselves as what is presented physically rather then who a person is. According to Helen Champion:

Beauty standards are portrayed everywhere: on magazines, social media, ads, commercials, and even flaunted among peers. While the ideals are supposed to promote health awareness, fitness motivation, and self love, it unfortunately results in many unfavorable consequences. Women are constantly “penalized for not being beautiful and at the same time are stigmatized, even pathologized, for not feeling beautiful, for having low self-esteem, for engaging in behaviors like dieting and excessive exercising, or for having eating disorders” (Johnston and Taylor 954). Beauty standards are unrealistic and unhealthy to pursue, and misinforms the public on what true beauty is. While not all beauty image ideals promote negative feelings and dissatisfaction, many believe that the negative effects far outweighs any positive effects.

In today’s world everywhere you look there are images of what our society considers beautiful. Television uses pretty skinny girls for the popular TV shows, magazines use pictures of skinny women in the articles, store windows use pictures of skinny models modeling the stores clothes, and billboards use young skinny pretty models modeling jewelry or other products. In reality, these women do not look like what these pictures portray them as. These

Every individual has their own ideas on what is considered beautiful. Beauty can be on the inside or on the outside because it varies to each individual’s preference. However, pressure from society causes people to believe that they must adapt and conform to society’s apocryphal image of beauty. Today, society’s image of beauty has been manufactured on a distorted perception of unrealistic perfection that has been asserted by the media and implemented through its advertisements to proclaim that women need to appease this standard in order to be considered beautiful in society. Media’s pessimistic views of beauty influence the way women portray themselves in daily life. Media has a negative impact on women and the way they

This paper explores published articles that report on the issue of body images presented in the fashion industry. It covers the role that fashion magazines and media have in the development of body dissatisfaction in women. Women are hypnotized to the manipulation of the fashion industry and can turn their outlooks on their body images to negative. I examined the way in which the fashion industry advertising has portrayed women, and analyzed the way in which this depiction of the ideal women has hurt society’s perspective about beauty and decrease women’s liking in their body

Women are only beautiful if they are young, tall, and thin. This is what the media has led society to think. Women in advertising are usually altered and sculpted until they no longer reflect reality. The idealized version of both men and women are unrealistic and may cause an array of psychological problems and eating disorders. To address these negative side effects society could add diversity to media, teach people to love who they are, and wait for beauty standards to change.