Back in January the topic was 'body image' and I felt compelled to write something about this because I have quite a strong opinion on this issue and it affects so many people. I know my writing style isn't very professional or journalistic so I wasn't surprised when my entry wasn't picked. However, I still think it's an important message to spread so I'm going to share it with you here.
[Disclaimer: I talk about female body image here, this does not mean I'm saying that men don't face similar problems, because they do.]
Girl body image is complex, frustrating and baffling. Everybody worries about the way they look, and if you disagree and say that you’re completely happy with your appearance then I’ll tell you that you are lying. To make ourselves feel better we’re told to be comfortable in our own skin and that appearance doesn’t matter and it’s what’s on the inside that counts. However, that’s not true is it? At least not for women. Society places an unhealthy amount of importance on aesthetic and no matter how much you dye your hair, do your make-up or dress differently at the bottom of it all a person cannot change how they look. So why do we measure a person’s worth by something we are born with and can’t alter?
It’s no wonder that women, at all ages, feel pressurised
to look a certain way. I feel like I’m lucky in a sense being a petite size 8
with large boobs, however, there are other parts of me that are ‘wrong’, which
to me says that if I want to be a T.V presenter or in the public eye in any way
shape or form I’d need to be a lot taller, in fact I’d actually need smaller
boobs and skinnier legs would definitely boost my chances of success.
Naomi
Wolf’s ‘Beauty Myth’ still exists and makes women critique themselves so
harshly because they believe they don’t fit the mould that society has deemed
‘beautiful’. There needs to be ways to help women who punish themselves for not
looking how they believe they should. One way would be to represent more ‘real’
women in the media. However, we can say with a lot of confidence that it’s very
unlikely. How successful do you think The X Factor would be with two short,
size 14 women with un-plucked eyebrows sitting on the judges’ panel?
I'd love to get a discussion going so please let me know what you think in the comments. Is the media distorting our perception of 'beauty'? And let's not just keep the debate focused on women, we should open it up to the effects of the media on men's body image too.
Hannah
I completely agree. For almost every woman today (not forgetting the men) there's always that pressure that they have to look 'gorgeous'. Sure, it's easy to say that you're happy in your own skin, but everyone looks in the mirror and thinks 'I wish I had bigger boobs' or 'I wish my nose was smaller'. It's not fair. Why do we all feel like this? Because of the media - everywhere you look, there's images of stunning girls. And by stunning, I mean girls who have been airbrushed of their wide-open pores and extra inches of fat.
ReplyDeleteSo everyone is missing the point! You weren't born to have a perfectly flawless hourglass figure, girls. You were born to give birth and keep the population going. There's no real definition of pretty, because chances are, there's someone out there who thinks you're stunningly beautiful with a great personality. There are aspects of myself that I hate, but I would never bring myself to go under the knife for anything.
We need to encourage children from a young age that they're perfect as they are, and not to believe the airbrushed, photoshopped pictures they see. We all know what Beyonce and other gorgeous celebs would look like if they didn't have make-up on or been airbrushed. Let's show the world what real men and women look like! :D
Of course, media has a huge role in this problem. Tv shows, series... They say a specific type of woman is beautiful. We can't judge them, because this is a common vulnerability. We all have some parts of our bodies that we don't like, we're not perfect. But the important part is, how this affect our lives. If this body image issues (like i want to be skinny or my nose doesn't look good) changes the way we think and have a bad effect on our daily lives (like we don't eat much, or so obssesed with it that we can't sleep, or change everything in our lives), then we can call it as a disease. It's literally a disease and needs a psychiatric consultation. It may sound harsh but for a better and happy life, we must help this people, and they should be treated in a very careful way which is known by psychiatrists or psychologists
ReplyDeleteWe're told and shown what 'beauty' is and it seems to get accepted by a lot of people when it's completely wrong, look at TOWIE and Jordie Shore, people who in reality aren't beautiful at all. The media needa to see that natural bodies and natual beauty is much better than stick thin, fake tan, fake hair etc. I'd much prefer a girl who's natural looking. I think its a joke how you get numerous magazines which highlight celebrities who have gained a pound and say its a bad thing! Which then makes girls think that need to lose weight. If I had a pound fer every time I saw a girl who said they needed to lose weight I'd be a millionaire.
ReplyDeleteI don't think men have the same problem as much because of people like Peter Kay, James Cordon and others and no one seems to care that they're big lads.
I agree with this whole heartedly. My "type" of girls is the more natural girls. One of the biggest media pressures for girls i think is to be thin, as if being over 11 stone constitutes obesity. Personally i tell any girl worried about her weight that in my eyes curves are attractive and bones are a turn off. I'm also fairly anti make up- my little sister gets up an hour early every morning for school so as to do her make up, by the end it looks like a mask and just too fake, On the rare occasions she doesn't wear any she looks a lot prettier. I appreciate discrete make up but not when it is over the top.
ReplyDeleteAs for the boys whenever we have non-school uniform days there is such a pressure to wear any labels, last time out i wore a grey shirt with a pencil tie and grey jeans and everyone was asking where i got it from and thinking i was joking by saying tesco!