What if: I was taller, my thighs weren’t so big, I wasn’t so curvy, my nose wasn’t so round, I wasn’t so short, if my breasts were smaller…or bigger, I looked like the model in my magazines, what if I could just be PERFECT?
I have strained my brain with these questions every day, growing up I questioned why I looked different from my friends who were either skinnier or chubbier than me. What category did I fall into being thick, short, and busty? I finally came to the realization that no one is PERFECT; this is a huge problem amongst the female population that we try to emulate a false standard of beauty.
Some women have enough self-esteem that they’re confident in their appearance that they feel no need to alter it; other women will try to imitate the principles of beauty the media portrays so far to the point that they will starve themselves until they believe they achieve PERFECTION. But who created this ideal body image usually consisting of a tall, slender female with minimal curves as a universal figure for the epitome of PERFECTION?
Webster defines beauty as “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit”. In my opinion, the definition of beauty surpasses physical attributes and comes in all different shapes, sizes, and races. Despite Webster’s definition of beauty solely being qualities in a person, when did it transform into only being physical appearance? The American research group Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders, Inc. says, “one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of weight control—including fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise, laxative abuse, and self-induced vomiting”. It’s a sad statistic but true, that some of the most insightful, intelligent women suffer from skewed body perceptions of celebrities, models etc. shown in the media as to what to and what not to look like. The question is who’s to blame for some women’s need to copy the appearance portrayed by the media…is it the media or the woman who analyzes it as “the standard of beauty”. Personally, ladies it’s our job to understand the invisible line between media enhanced beauty vs. true beauty; it’s up to us to decipher what is our norm of beauty and to accept our “own” self-image.
Is your body image a constant struggle like millions of women around the globe or are you comfortable and confident in the way that you look?