This is an essay that i wrote in school: I wanted to share it here.
You know that you’ve seen them. On
television or in an advertisement, with their perfect lips, huge eyes, long
necks, and radiant hair, they’re all that most girls want to be. Society has
created a monster that overpowers all desire to be individual. This monster
makes young, lovely girls starve themselves to mimic that it. It causes girls to
be the victim of bullying because they don’t fit this pretty image. It educates
generations on one specific way to look, instead of embracing differences and
diversity. Yet this monster doesn’t exist. It is simply a warped vision of what
is beautiful. This monster is an “attractive” woman. Society needs to portray women in a more realistic way, so that
everyone might one day fit under the definition of “beautiful.”
To start, lots of girls want to look
like models. Unfortunately, most models have an eating disorder; as a result
many of the girls that look up to them have an eating disorder too. Society
lets girls starve just to mimic these disgustingly skinny people. You may be
wondering what an eating disorder is. Well, according to the medical dictionary of dictionary.com, an eating disorder is “a
potentially life-threatening neurotic condition, such as anorexia nervosa or
bulimia, usually seen in young women.” If you haven’t heard of it, anorexia
is when young girls develop a distorted view of their body and starve
themselves, sometimes to death. Bulimia is when they throw up or use laxatives
after eating a large meal so that they don’t actually digest anything. These
and many other disorders threaten the lives of young girls and women every day.
Seven million women in America have an
eating disorder. Only 30%-40% of anorexics will fully recover. That means that
60%-70% will deal with anorexia (once they develop it) for their entire lives.
And these disorders don’t only affect the person, either. It affects the whole
family and the person’s friends. An eating disorder will sometimes require
excessive counseling and/or family counseling. Do you like eating dinner and having amicable conversations? Families
with an anorexic or bulimic member will often have long conversations and
fights over dinner and meals. It literally kills: 5%-10% of people die after 10 years of being anorexic and 18%-20% die
after 20. 80% of thirteen year-olds have tried to lose weight. Got that?
13. They already have the stress of
growing up and finding themselves. Society morphs young minds to model
celebrities, even if it kills them. For example, almost ¾ of all female
actresses in sitcoms are underweight. Take video games: The women there are
portrayed as “gorgeous” and often dressed in revealing costumes. Their waists
are about 5 inches wide. I find it disgusting that, even though producers,
fashion designers, and advertisers know what they are doing, they continue to
do it. Many girls starve themselves in the quest for what, in this society, is
unreachable: being pretty.
When you go to school, have you ever been called a “metal-mouth”
because you have braces? A nerd, because you need to wear glasses? Maybe even a
robot because you have a prosthetic. Why? Because everyone looks up to the
small minority that is beautiful. The people who look like those girls on
television. People are bullied because of their minor flaws. But people are
prettier with them: it makes us unique, who we are. Who wants to look like a
malnourished stick? Not me. For some reason, though, the young people of the
world think that that thin, starving girl is the ultimate definition of
beautiful. People don’t want braces or headgear or acne or glasses or any minor
cosmetic flaw or corrector, because they feel that they won’t be liked or might
get bullied. Do you have braces? 80% of
adolescents do too. Why do people think that the 20% of people who don’t
have them are “cool” or “attractive”? People shouldn’t be judged according to a
standard. Do you think Lady Gaga is good-looking?
When she was younger, she was bullied because she had a big nose. Now she’s a
pop star! Who cares about the size of her nose? In England and Wales, girls
between the ages of 15 and 22 were surveyed. 56% were abused physically or
verbally, or cyber-bullied because of their weight, height, or hair color. 97%
of a surveyed body of women had at least one time where they hated their body.
Why? Why does society let women hate themselves? Everyone should be loved and
love themselves for who they are. For some stupid reason, everyone wants to be
that girl on television. It’s cruel to try and filter out that small minority
that is supposedly beautiful and culling all the rest.
While you’re
out with your family and you see someone who is different, perhaps you’ve heard
your younger siblings ask, “Why are they like that, Mommy?” Even though they don’t know any better at that age, we’ve
educated them to see an appearance as something to define the person instead of
just accepting that they’re the same inside. To see one specific way to look,
instead of embracing and accommodating diversity, differences, and
disabilities. Many young girls are thought of as weird because they are
overweight or have a disability. But they’re not defined by that the same way
that models are defined by their looks; that’s possibly the only thing the
models have got going for them. Agatha
Christie had epilepsy and dyslexia. Now the girl who might have been made fun
of because of her disabilities is an amazing writer, almost the hardest thing
to do with dyslexia. Cameron Diaz had OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
Julia Roberts had a stutter when she was younger. Now she’s a famous actress,
delivering lines smoothly. These wonderful women have overcome their
disabilities and like them, many young girls are smart, artistic, eloquent, and
funny, but we still seem to zoom in on their differences and develop pointless judgments.
We look up and compare ourselves to models that don’t exist; they’re airbrushed
and changed out of reality. We can’t seem to overcome the falsehood that women
are defined by their appearance; doesn’t that seem twisted?
Society
needs to portray women in a more realistic way. Before girls give up their lives in an endless quest to be skinny. Before
people are victimized because of their temporary cosmetic correctors. Before generations upon generations discriminate
against people irrevocably. Step up to help us change the idea of beauty in
this world. Do it for the starving girls, the bullied ones, and the next
generation. Because everyone is
beautiful, and we need to learn to acknowledge it.
