Media Distortion of Beauty

What is beauty? Is beauty the flawless supermodel on the cover of a magazine? Is beauty the gorgeous actress you see on television? Beauty is defined as "the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind." (Dictionary) However, if you asked a young girl to define beauty, I guarantee she would give you a much different answer.

A young girl flips through a fashion magazine. A headline on the cover reads, "Be The Girl Everyone Loves!" She sees celebrities and models, lithe and lean with perfect sun-kissed skin, staring back at her. These women are the media's prototype of beauty. She reads an article that gives step-by-step instructions of how to do your makeup exactly like Lindsay Lohan. Another article features famous singer Rihanna, documenting her workout routine, to show young girls how they can attain her flat stomach and toned behind. Airbrushed images of flawless models decorate the various advertisements between the articles. An advertisement for breast enhancement tablets boasts that for $229.95, you too can grow larger breasts and "feel more beautiful and sexier than ever".

However, the main article is about "embracing yourself" and having self esteem. Magazines like this one send mixed messages to young girls, telling them to be proud of who they are and have confidence, but featuring pictures of waif-like, airbrushed models and articles instructing girls to do their hair and make-up like a certain celebrity. Consequently, many young girls feel inadequate because they fall short of the media's impossible standard of beauty. This growing emphasis on the importance of "beauty" is unhealthy and dangerous to young women. So why do magazines and advertisers continue to feature the stereotypical "beautiful" women? Studies show that the impossible standard of beauty was created for economic purposes. Companies selling beauty and diet products are guaranteed a profit if the majority of women feel the need to attain the level of beauty featured in advertisements.

However, these companies should be aware that this behavior is very destructive to young girls' mindsets. In a 2003 Teen Magazine Survey, thirty-five percent of girls age six to twelve admitted to having once been on a diet. Similarly, fifty to seventy percent of healthy weight girls believe they need to lose weight to meet the media's thin ideal. Only seven percent of women ages eighteen to thirty-four are as thin as the average model, and the average model weighs twenty-three percent less than an average women. (Eating Disorders: Body Image and the Media) What this means is that models are a very small minority that are portrayed to be "average girls".

Young women go to great lengths to embody the media's unrealistic image of beautiful. Eating disorders, such as bulimia and anorexia, are common in young women and aspiring models who feel that the skinnier they are, the more beautiful they will be. In fact, one out of every four college women uses unhealthy methods to lose weight. These include fasting, skipping meals, vomiting, laxative use, and excessive exercise. Obviously, women and girls believe that their bodies need to be perfected to the media's standard of beauty.

Many young girls will do anything to be "beautiful". In 2005, breast augmentation was the most popular graduation present for young women. (Cosmetic Procedures and Surgery) Another disturbingly popular cosmetic procedure is rhinoplasty, which alters the shape of the nose. What is more disturbing is that the media promotes this behavior. The popular MTV show "I Want a Famous Face", which aired in 2005, featured young men and women who wanted to look like a celebrity. The show documented the various cosmetic procedures that were performed on the men and women to make them look exactly like a celebrity. This is a blatant illustration of the media encouraging young people to feel that you need to look like somebody else in order to be beautiful.

But beauty isn't something that you can inject or surgically enhance. Beauty isn't the size of your waist or the length of your hair. So what is beauty? To me, beauty is having confidence and appreciating what you have. Beauty is being different and unique, not only in how you look, but how you act. A beautiful person is one who doesn't feel the need to be exactly like somebody else. Beauty is being proud of who you are.