518 words
Teenagers are self-conscious. It’s as easy as that and as a
16 year old girl I can completely understand why. Just look at what is splashed
across billboards, shown on TV, in magazines, and in advertisements! The first
thing you see when you walk into Hollister is a topless guy showing off his
six-pack and his swim shorts hung low; walk into Victoria’s Secret and you see
nearly naked women on every wall. What kind of message is this sending to kids
these days? They are so surrounded by this that they have become brainwashed
into thinking that this is what you’re supposed to look like. No wonder
teenagers feel so self-conscious about the way that they look. Even though I
know that these pictures that I see in magazines are photoshoped for the
desired look I still look at someone on TV and wish I looked like them. It’s
just the way that I grew up in society.
When I was little I went to a small Lutheran school and my
family tried to protect me from these influences but every now and then I would
see something and I remember telling my mom how uncomfortable it made me seeing
things like that. Now I am in a public high school and went to a public middle
school and I remember how one time I realized that the things that used to make
me uncomfortable I had now just accepted. I’m so immune to things like this yet
it still puts that message in my head that I need to have perfect skin, have
perfect hair, and have that perfect thigh gap. I’m not overweight, far from it,
actually, yet at times I feel like I need to go running or I need to go on a
diet. I will spend hours in front of the mirror criticizing everything about my
appearance and at times I hate myself for not being ‘perfect’. But in this
society we have lost what the meaning of ‘perfect’ is.
In November of last year the thing people were talking about
was the human Barbie. Even though she denies having a lot of plastic surgery, no woman is born with the
same proportions as a Barbie Doll; it’s so unrealistic! Take a look for
yourself here.
This is what the media does to
us. It makes us believe that we aren't perfect enough. It shows us what they
think is the desired look for women and here guys are subconsciously thinking
that this is what women are supposed to look like. That’s why I say to a guy if
he doesn’t look like a Hollister model don’t expect me to look like a Victoria’s
Secret angel.
In today’s society it is so hard
for girls to look in the mirror and tell themselves that they are pretty with
all of these media influences blinding them. For a lot of girls, they won’t
feel pretty, no matter how many people tell them that they are, until they see
it themselves and thanks to photoshoped models that is getting harder and
harder to do.
~Skooogster(:
Cool title. yo.
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