What is considered the “perfect body shape” has changed a lot in the past couple of decades. These days, teenage girls, especially around late middle and high school aged, see representations of what they feel like they are supposed to look like. The idea that you need to be skinny in order to be beautiful. The concept of beauty being a beast is something that plagues teenage girls everywhere.
This picture shows how magazines can influence how teenage girl feels about her own body. The picture of the girl isn't focused on her, it is focused on her diet pills. And you can see that she is looking at the magazine cut-outs, almost fantasizing herself looking like those girls in the pictures. What she doesn't realize is that probably every single one of those girls has been digitally edited in some way to make them seem skinnier than they really are. This give teenage girls an extremely false idea as to what looks pretty and beautiful.
Girls learn from an early age that they should be beautiful and pretty. They are given play make-up sets to start practicing for when they are older. When they reach puberty, they are forced to see these unrealistic pictures of skinny girls, making them believe that they should look like that and that they should make themselves look like that by any means necessary.
1 comment:
Skinny is Pretty
I can relate to this picture because in my inner circle of female friends we often find ourselves getting caught up in our images. Myself and my friends are older then most college students here but these issues still effect us. We still care about how we look when we go out, how long our hair is, what brand of makeup we are using, and how our outfits fit us. We also compete with how much time we spend in the gym so that we can look good for our weekend outings. During my teenage years I was more of a tomboy and didn’t care as much about my image but now that I am older I seem to care more. I think it is because things were different when I was growing up. Or at least I didn’t notice these things back then. But what I do notice are the teenagers I see and know now. I feel they seem much older then they really are and as time goes on it gets worse. I feel some teenagers look well into their 20’s, and that is because of how they get caught up in these social images that surround us. My friends little sister is 15 years old and I see how she is worried about the same things that myself and my girlfriends are worried about. She is worrying about what shade of lipstick to buy and what color to dye her hair. I do not recall worrying about these things at 15 but I do now. This is just proof that these magazines and social images that are mentioned in this essay and photo can effect females at any age.
Post a Comment