The True Meaning Of Beauty

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.

Throughout the years, the definition of beauty constantly changes. In our society today many children are told to be true to themselves, to be unique, to be who they are, etc.; But on the other hand social media and the celebrities on there are a constant reminder that there is a certain type of beautiful. The juxtaposition between being yourself and being what is “beautiful” has consistent grey areas and blurred lines making it almost impossible to keep up with what’s “beautiful”. The media, whether intentional or not, portrays this certain body image that you have to be in order to qualify as beautiful.

The media group that retouches images skews the “normal” body image of people through many of its outlets, including models in advertising and magazines, and actors in TV and movie productions. “The average model portrayed in the media is approximately 5’11” and 120 pounds. By contrast, the average American woman is 5’4” and 140 pounds” (Holmstrom, 2004). This statistic shows how the media manipulates consumers into believing that because they are not what the average model looks like, they are not living up to a certain standard which implies that they need to look like that to be beautiful. Another research fact that shows a similar concept is that, “In the United States, 94% of female characters in television programs are thinner than the average American woman, with whom the media frequently associate happiness, desirability, and success in life” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This association of female thinness and happiness, desirability and success makes consumers believe they must achieve this unrealistic thinness to achieve more ultimate goals and fulfillment in life. “The media also explicitly instruct how to attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and body-contouring surgery, encouraging female consumers to believe that they can and should be thin” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This idealization of thinness in the media is seen so much, and is extremely harmful to women’s self confidence and is often associated with body image dissatisfaction, which can be a precursor to social anxiety, depression, eating disturbances, and poor self-esteem (Yamamiya et al.,

Have you ever thought of what true beauty means? In the article “Pop Culture Is Destroying True Beauty” by Rachel Drevno, she explains how pop culture and the media are influencing people to believe that they aren’t good enough because they don’t look a certain way. The beauty Drevno discusses are the actors and celebrities in commercials, movies, and magazines. She believes that people are trying and changing themselves to look like those in commercials or movies because that’s how standard beauty has been portrayed. I strongly agree with her argument because the media only presents images of attractive, beautiful, and sexy figures.

For example, Jennifer Lawrence was recently featured on the cover of Flare magazine, but it wasn’t entirely her. An already beautiful woman was altered and refined so that she could fit the qualifications of the magazine editors. They photoshopped her to look thinner, have more appealing features, and even changed the shape and color of her hands. If a famous actress that is already looked to as gorgeous had to be modified to look better, how can common women ever feel good about themselves? Only 5% of women in the U.S. are said to naturally have the picture-perfect body that is portrayed in media. 40-70% of girls that are in grade school either want to lose weight because of magazine pictures or think that the perfect body is depicted by magazines. 42% of girls in 1st through 3rd grade want to lose weight. 81% of 10 year olds are scared of getting fat. The media’s interpretation of the ideal body is even affecting kids. We can prevent that by stressing that being “average” isn’t what you see on magazines, being “average” is any way someone can be

Looking good and being in shape is a top priority of today’s adults. According to the American Society of Plastic surgery (ASPA) 14.6 million cosmetic surgery procedures were performed in the United States in 2012. This is a 5 percent increase since 2011. The constant media advertisement of weight loss, sex appeal, and cosmetically enhanced beauty often leads to unrealistic standards of beauty and dissatisfaction in personal appearance. This overexposure to Hollywood beauty causes women to wonder how come they don’t look like that and often leaves them questioning what they can do to have a picture perfect body and face. According to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), the promotion of unhealthy standards of beauty by the media often leads to depression and dissatisfaction in personal appearance (Chittom 3). Media have a negative impact on women’s body image and how women respond to the media’s portrayal of what is beautiful by advertisements emphasizing the importance of physical attractiveness, using Photoshop and airbrushing techniques to alter images people see in advertisements, and disregarding healthy living.

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)

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.

Many people may not realize this, but the media influences our perception of beauty more often than not. Our society have set an unrealistic standard of beauty for women, and we see this through different media vehicles such as on TV and on the Internet. Over the years, the advertisers have succeeded in creating commercials that sends hidden messages on how our society should define beauty. For instance, the thin women shown on TV tells us that they should be envied upon simply because they are more attractive and happier than bigger sized women. Worse, the majority of them or as classified by the media, “fat” women, are shamed and automatically viewed as lazy, unattractive, and unhappy. For this reason, many women feel pressured to adhere to the society’s standards of beauty, because who wants to be labeled fat, lazy, and unhappy anyway? A great example of people who are pressured to conform to our society’s standards are the female Hollywood celebrities. In their desire to be portrayed as “beautiful,” many of them starve themselves and end up suffering from eating disorders such as binge eating, anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Demi Lovato and Kesha are some of the Hollywood stars who confessed suffering from eating disorders and admitted to feeling pressured to achieve and maintain certain body standards. In the book, Y points out Valerie’s habit to constantly check herself in the mirror

A study by The University of New Hampshire discovered that “images of women wearing makeup were judged to be healthier and more confident than the images of the same women without makeup.” On top of being perceived as more confident and healthy the women who wore makeup also reportedly “found that wearing cosmetics caused ratings of self-confidence within the females to be higher than ratings of women without makeup” (Britton). Thus proving that the way beauty is portrayed by the beauty industry can have a negative effect on women as it changes the entire society’s definition of beauty to something unattainable by natural means. Besides looking and often feeling more confident and healthy, the study also revealed that women who wore makeup were often perceived as have a “greater earning potential and considered to have more prestigious jobs than when they were presented without makeup” (Britton). Based off of the study it is no wonder why women tend to be obsessed with beauty products in order to get the “proper body image” as what has been displayed to them as the norm since birth and then later fell they are of lesser value.

Every single day when I wake up in the morning, one of the first things I do is look at myself in the mirror. Am I skinny enough? Is my skin clear enough? Do I look like the girl from the magazine I was reading yesterday? No. I don’t. But I’ll keep asking these questions each and everyday because that is what the media tells me I need to look like. Because if my waist isn’t small enough I’m not pretty. Because if I have cellulite on my legs there’s something wrong with me. Because if I don’t slot into this unattainable standard. I'm not beautiful. Airbrushing and photoshopping models in pictures to display through media is something that frankly speaking is appalling. We are alienating beautiful human beings because of the media’s dictations on what we should look like. I am sick of being brainwashed to the point where all I can ever seem to do is single out the ‘flaws’ in myself. If we display, real, beautiful, raw pictures of people in media then so many problems caused by this would no longer exist.

“You’re pretty for a black girl.” For those who may not be aware, that statement is not a compliment. Never has and never will be. Yet in 2017, I heard it being directed at a young black girl recently, who appeared as amazed as I was upon hearing it. The individual speaking those cringe-causing words did so with a smile, apparently oblivious to her ignorant and insensitive statement.

Imagine this. Walking down the street and seeing duplicates of the same facial features. The same hair, eyes, nose, color of skin, lips, shape of their face, shape of their bodies, all trying to look the same. All of these women trying to have the same look. All women trying to look like the “ideal western woman” Imagine every race trying to get rid of their features to make themselves look like the ideal Caucasian women. Spending an incredible amount of money going through crazy procedures that are extremely expensive. The media impacts woman to believe that the “western image” is the look. Implanting a certain idea in their head and once it is in our minds, there is no way of getting it out. Media makes us feel like we are never good enough with the way we look. Having that thought in their head, women go through body procedures as well as plastic surgery to change the way they look. Western Countries are influencing Asian woman across the globe to rely on plastic surgery and cosmetic products to change their appearance causing woman around the world to conform to the Caucasian ideal look.

No matter your outermost appearance, all people have some innermost attractiveness. Women are constantly under pressure to become the societies distorted beautiful, when in reality you will find your friends and soul mates based upon your actions and beliefs. When you walk into any store, you will see magazines plastered with faces that seem unrealistically gorgeous. You see eighty pound models walking across runways and of course the traditional “skinny” and “fat.” The fact of the matter is that these women on the covers of magazines aren’t, in actuality, themselves, but rather a computer generated and enhanced version of them. Studies show that almost every woman in the United States have insecurities concerning their hair, face, body, etc., and the addition of public display of unrealistic beauty decreases a woman’s self confidence just by glancing over the cover of a magazine.

Advertising likes to show unrealistic. The images of the model that we usually show in the advertisement are often unrealistic and unattainable. Cosmetic advertising likes to show young women and men are flawless and seem to have very clean. The images we view in advertising of flawlessness is not a real image, they have been edited the photo using photoshop to give the models appearance more excellence. Many teenage think that the models of advertisements are real and perfect, it makes them believe that using the cosmetic will make them look more beautiful. Advertisement encourages the teenager to put make up at an early age which is not good for their skin. Teenage more likely define beauty as make up rather than natural beauty. The unrealistic on advertisement have changed teenage minds about the meaning of beauty.