The dictionary definition of beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual experience of satisfaction.
Sometimes you can forget that your body is one thing about yourself, it doesn’t identify you. You have many principles (characteristics) about yourself like being smart, respectful, forgiving, loving, caring etc. Does that describe your outer image? No it doesn’t because who you are isn’t how you look; it’s just one small detail. Now I could go on and on about how your principles define who you are and not your physical appearance, but don’t you wonder how you became so obsessed with putting so much effort into your physical appearance?
Well it’s the magazines you read and the commercials you watch, there’s always a skinny beautiful model who looks like she hasn’t eaten in days with the new Gucci boots on, it sounds nauseating but yet we wish we looked just like her. A woman’s body image is her sanctuary; women put their life and sweat into making their body beautiful…to them or least to the world. Who in the world are you looking beautiful for? The answer is the media, the media controls how you look and how you want to look.
The media has the biggest impact on how women look at themselves through their body image. I was looking at Seventeen Magazine and saw that there was an article titled “Skinny is the new Pink”. The model was tall, skinny, and beautiful. Her hair was long and shiny. I envied her weight, her height, everything about her. She made me feel like I should change so much about my physical appearance. I should flatten my stomach, exercise daily, and begin to wear make-up. I began to become obsessed with making my body look like that women.
The worse thing was that after two or three months of changing my eating habits, the outcome was horrible. My stomach didn’t go down far enough, and I received pupils the size of Texas all across my face. I began to hate how I looked and more importantly I began to worry about what people thought of me. I became someone I wasn’t, someone who didn’t like herself and that wasn’t me. I use to be this incredible confident young female. And then in an instant flash I was this low self-esteem, young female who just had to change how she looked or she wouldn’t “fit in” to what the media thought was beautiful.
Until one day after a month not wearing make-up and eating the right amount of meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner and a little snack every day), I sat down looked in the mirror and saw the real me. The treasure I was before I wanted to change and I looked beautiful. I had to realize that the girl the cover wasn’t herself either; she was reformed into what the media wanted her to be.
I know for a fact that I wasn’t the only female who went through this superfluous change. I feel bad that the media has this incredible power over females across the world from ages thirteen to thirty-five. The media basically controls how women think of their physical appearance, which in the long run controls their inner appearance. I’m not saying you should never read a magazine, or watch TV, but there are a few things you should remember when you do use the media guard your tongue, stay positive, and encourage yourself.