Do I look fat in this? Why can’t I look like the girls in magazines? How come people stare at me? These are the questions that many teenage girls ask themselves. I can probably guess how many people in this room put themselves down. Close your eyes, and raise your hand if you have ever told yourself that you are not beautiful, that you could lose weight or someone looks better than you. Open your eyes and look around, this number makes me feel terrible because it’s not only us in this room that put ourselves down, it’s many girls locally, nationally and globally.
In fact around 80% of teenage girls have body image issues. This means that day in and day out girls tell themselves that they are not beautiful, that there is someone better than them and that they aren’t special, but why you ask? I’ll tell you why, all adolescents are susceptible to the psychological phenomenon known as 'the imaginary audience'. What this means is that many teenagers are extremely concerned with what other people think and see of them because they believe everyone is constantly watching them, analysing them and making judgements about them.
A stain on their shirt, a pimple on their forehead; these are common examples of issues that most people would never notice about another, sometimes even themselves, but teenagers feel like it’s the only thing others notice. Teenagers feel the strong desire to fit in and be ‘like everyone else’ or do something like go on a diet because ‘everyone else does it’. If their peers are striving to look like supermodels then they will feel the need to do the same. For most teenagers trying to achieve an unrealistically thin body can lead to endless dieting, constant vigorous exercise, depression and the sometimes fatal eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.
Add this obnoxious imaginary audience with a civilization obsessed with being sickly skinny, wearing expensive clothes and meeting the requirements of a certain trend and you can start to understand the day to day issues that each and every teenager has to contend with. However, these are not the only things you need to contemplate, what most people don’t realise is that you’re not always guaranteed to grow out of this phase. Studies have shown that many women over 40 are still dissatisfied with their appearance. This can mean that women of all ages, shelter themselves inside their homes, hiding their image from the world, it’s like a caterpillar living in a cocoon and never showing itself as the beautiful butterfly it is.
The best way to ease the stress from teenager dealing with body issues is to let them know that they are unique and should express themselves in their own way. They should also be informed that everyone has imperfections and issues such as acne are a part of life, but be careful not to say 'no one cares'. Telling a teenager no one cares is like telling them that no one will notice them. It’s an odd situation because while the teen fears everyone is watching them at the same time they don't want to feel like no one is noticing them. A common example is when a girl goes to get her hair done but when her boyfriend sees it, he says nothing. Wouldn’t you feel bad if that happened to you?
Being a teenager, I understand that teenagers will still do and believe in what they please, the best one can do is show teenagers that the Hollywood image is not the perfect image or the only image. It can be tough being a teenager with all the mixed signals one receives from society, the media, their parents, peers and friends. The pressure to have the ‘perfect’ body image in the 21st century is immense, especially with all the photo editing products used these days. Photoshop, Printshop and Paintshop are only a few of the photo editing programmes available nowadays but who would want to spend hundreds of dollars buying products to lower your self esteem, I’d suggest you all go and spend the money on a photo shoot instead of turning yourself into a stereotypical image
Stereotypical figures like the manikins in the shopping centres portray the wrong image. The size six plastic dolls help to ruin our self esteem. Am I right by saying that the clothes always look great on them but somehow not so great on us? These dolls are coat hangers for our clothes just as fashion designers are trying to make us. But who wants to say, isn’t she a lovely coat hanger or when I grow up I want to be a coat hanger. Designers are only interested in selling their clothes, no matter who gets hurt. It’s disgusting to see models that are size 4 and 6; they can barely work down a runway. They show these skeletal girls in magazines standing like racks with clothes on them. It’s a shame that healthy, normal sized women cannot be shown off to the world.
Magazines send the wrong impression to not only teenagers but older women as well. We look at these photos and see beautiful faces and stunning figures, but really what we’re looking at is 2D objects. These people don’t exist; you can’t even say they are plastic. They were once beautiful women but they entered the world of computer screens letting men and women edit their figures and touch-up their faces. They became pieces of papers, lies hidden under a computer screen. We look up to these people and think “why can’t I look like them” but really what we’re saying is why can’t I look like that piece of paper.
You may laugh but it’s true. Raise your hand if you have ever read a magazine and thought, I wish I was that pretty. I thought so. Everyone repeat after me. I don’t want to look like a piece of paper, I am me and I am beautiful. So, next time you read a magazine I don’t want you to say, I wish I was that pretty but say, I don’t want to look like a piece of paper, I am me and I am beautiful. So, it’s time for a change but not to change our bodies, it’s not time to change our lifestyle, our eating habits, our clothing, it’s time to change the rules.
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