The Importance Of Obsession With Beauty

As of recently, the media has been flooded with positive interpretations of beauty standards all over the world. According to various sources, beauty ideals, in women especially, are socially constructed in order to judge a person’s value based on physical attractiveness; therefore, it is highly encouraged that people pay attention to their looks and take care of themselves, in order for others to create a positive first impression of one’s character. It is no secret that beauty standards vary from one culture to the next and it is difficult to establish a universal principle of what is considered beautiful. Many countries’ ideals contrast one another and, as a result, allow for stereotypes to emerge. This is the case between American

How can a nation so concerned with how one looks also be a nation with such staggering statistics on the growing population of obese individuals? According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), “about one-third of U.S. adults are obese.” Also reported in the CDC website from the National Heart Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), “… overweight and obesity conditions affect an estimated 97 million Americans, and are the second leading cause for preventable death in the United States.” Obesity is defined by the Health and Wellness Resource Center as the “excessive body weight that develops over time as people consume more calories than they expend in energy.” (Carson-De Witt, et al., 3) The body mass index, BMI, is a measure used

Americans have grown to try and look their best no matter what and this all stems from the way people view body image. Today someone could have anything they want done to change their appearance. “We are a culture of beauty junkies, addicts continually looking for our next fix to keep us looking young and pretty” (Masterson). Masterson believes that people are addicted to beauty and it is almost like a drug. This is not far from the truth. People go overboard to look as good as they possibly can with things like plastic surgery, botox, and even simple things like makeup. With the obsession with beauty as bad as it is today one seems to never be satisfied with how they look. “But that uplifting message--I'm OK the way I am--is overshadowed by the dark view readers are left with of a society obsessed with looks that isn't showing signs of stopping” (Masteron). The idea of someone being ok with their appearance gets quickly changed when they look around and see the world and the obsession it has. This is a huge reason body image is so bad in America now, because as soon as someone feels comfortable with their looks the standard changes. America’s obsession with looks is one of the biggest factors in the negative change towards body

In the American culture, obesity is seen as a bodily abnormality and deviance that should be corrected. Obesity has indeed become one of the most stigmatizing bodily characteristics in our culture (Brink, 1994). In the Western culture, thinness does not just mean the size of the

The essay “Chicken-Hips” talked about the different cultural standards of beauty. The writer wrote about a very personal experience when she was in Africa and compared it with the city where she lives in. Africans are very happy and proud about being fat, but in Canada people often work hard to be skinny like the models in advertisements. I personally think that no matter what beauty standards the society set for you, you should always do the thing that makes you feel happy, because being happy is healthier than being depressed.

The video Dying To Be Thin and both articles by Serpell all implicated that what society values as a perfect image has a direct impact on how people view themselves. Most people are not happy with some part of their outside appearance. Pop culture and reality shows display obsessions with perfection, plastic surgery, most times exploiting insecure people who are unhappy with their appearance. The perfect body is advertised on every media outlet and constantly seen in public. There are number of people looking for that “new” and “perfect body” repeatedly going to the doctors and other professionals as well as developing eating disorders enhancing their obsession about their appearance and how unhappy they are. Unfortunately, for some people this obsession goes beyond entertainment, for some people this unhappiness and obsession is not something that just

Thanks to fashion magazines, fast food and size-0 actresses, American women live in a crazy funhouse mirror -- the more the obesity rate rises, it seems, the tinier and more unrealistic our idealized standards of beauty become. But is it that way all over the world?

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.

“Your total comes to $7 billion.” This is the amount of money americans spend each year on cosmetics, they are willing to pay anything to look and feel beautiful. Most people do not even think twice before buying a product or service that will benefit their beauty. Americans are obsessed with beauty, it starts at childhood, then adulthood, and continues until the day they die.

The United States has even been called an overweight nation. About 20% to 30% of American adults are now considered obese. Even though some Americans are in the healthy category, others enter the underweight, overweight, and even obese categories. Not only is obesity unhealthy, but it is also considered unacceptable. People have been labeled and made fun of their entire lives due to obesity. For some this is an uncontrollable way of life. An example of this are shirts which say "No Fat Chicks", showing that overweight people are unacceptable and undesirable. People are made fun of, often never to regain full acceptance.

In 2008, the YWCA USA developed a report, Beauty at Any Cost, which discussed the consequences of the beauty obsession on women and girls in America. This report showed that not only does this beauty obsession result in decreased levels of self-esteem, but it’s also hitting on the pocket of many American women. The YWMCA reported that $7 billion is spent each year on cosmetics (Beauty at Any Cost, 2008, p. 7). It’s evident that the cosmetic industry influences consumers in some way. This beauty obsession has created a billion dollar industry, which holds the power to shape and change women’s perceptions of beauty.

Beauty is a timeless obsession. In these days, physical beauty is paraded and idolised. The desire in pursuing a beautiful face and the dream body figure can be seen as a needs in an individual’s life that must be fulfilled accordingly. The beauty obsession in human’s life has already started back in 1400 BC, whereby it is believed that people especially women who lived during the ancient years were exposed to beauty. All women from back then had some sort of regimen to maintain their beauty and their beauty ritual maybe considered as ultra-luxurious as the beauty products were invented from natural ingredients such as milk, almond oils and honey to maintain their beauty. They were really depending on ingredients which can be found in nature. As the beauty care has evolved over the years, people is now served with dozens of brands with hundreds of variants of beauty products.

Women have let the idea of looking beautiful take over their self-confidence and life. Healthy Place, an online magazine teaching women about living a healthy life, says that, “today's fashion models weigh twenty-three percent less than the average female, and a young woman between the ages of 18-34 has a seven percent chance of being as slim as a catwalk model and a one percent chance of being as thin as a supermodel.” So why do women push themselves to be excessively thin when these models are anomalies? They do it because the media tells them that this look is the only look that can attract men. Even if a woman is “beautiful” according to the media’s standards, she will always find something about her body that she hates, whether it is her hair or her belly button, no women is completely satisfied. Our society is very accepting of different religions and lifestyles, so why can we not accept different types of beauty as well?

Too many times to count, I’ve observed the behavior in my sisters and friends—double and triple checks in the mirror, scrutinizing glances at every reflective surface, and guarded smiles for photographs. Society preaches the importance of self-worth, while simultaneously providing us with endless, unattainable examples of perfection in the form of TV broadcasts, celebrity Instagram accounts, and photoshopped advertisements. Because of the media, beauty standards sit implausibly high, and this consequently results in plummeting levels of self-confidence in girls of all ages. Due to this skewed view of the importance of looks, it has become impossible for girls to differentiate between their God-given beauty and the reflection that they strive to behold in the mirror.

Beauty helps us socialize better, helps us get accepted in all sorts of groups, helps as communicate with no restrictions etc. That is why beauty standards exist all over the world and people, especially women, are trying every day to reach them and to overpass them if possible.