Baby, Baby
A number of girls become sexualized early too these days. While teenage celebrities have been traditionally wholesome, and look like normal teens (perhaps a bit prettier), today's teen role models are a different story. Think of the picture of seventeen-year-old Britney Spears in white booty shorts with BABY written across the butt in sequins, clutching a pink tricycle. Or recall Sarah Michelle Gellar, a popular teen icon, posing on the cover of Cosmo in a low-cut dress. We are exposed to innumerable adult women with mature clothing, makeup, and behavior, and many of us use these adult products in an attempt to emulate the sexy women in the media. This naturally leads to complications. If we're going to show off our bodies, we're told that they better remain thin and pretty! We had better force ourselves to look perfect. |
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The Supermodel Look
Supermodels are extreme abnormalities, a rare species. They represent the endomorphic body type: tall, thin, and "perfect." Most women are endomorphs - pear shaped or round - and no amount of dieting or exercise will make them otherwise. Today, supermodels weigh about 23% less then the average women. (For other jarring statistics involving media's effect on women, go to HYPERLINK http://www.about-face.org/resources/facts/media.html and go to the same site to check out the "Gallery of Offenders." This points fingers at companies such as Calvin Klein and Bebe, which offer offensive and unrealistic images). Supermodel Kirsty Hume, for example, is 5'11 and weighs less then 120 pounds. If she were to see a doctor she might be hospitalized. Instead, she is paid at least $500,000 to be idolized in Vogue, Allure, W, and Bazar. But even supermodels are not perfect: deceptive airbrushing, plastic surgery, makeup, and computer imaging can turn a realistic, imperfect woman into a doll-like, "perfect" creature, or even create an artificial woman by piecing together bits from other women, as on a recent Allure cover. How insulting! |
The Results:
Since we find it important to mimic these thin images as we mature, we may spend hours and dollars trying to paint on new faces, reduce our waists and legs by dieting, or undergo painful and sometimes dangerous surgeries in the hopeless pursuit of an unattainable goal of beauty. The majority of these procedures have no long-term effects except on our bank accounts. Sadly, the industries fostered by our zeal for appearance-improving items and diets are making billions of dollars.
Dieting is the most popular form of image control. Thousands of us diet, occasionally to the extreme of becoming anorexic or bulimic, and many of these girls die every year from these deadly diseases. In cultures where thinness is not worshipped so reverently, dieting is not considered necessary. It also rarely works, because most dieters gain back the weight they lose or deprive themselves of proper nutrition. We all need to know that it's not possible to naturally look like a supermodel and it's OKAY not to! (Really, it's good not to resemble the emaciated waifs that many advertisers use in their ads; very few of us - only 8 out of every 3 million - actually look like a supermodel, and there's nothing wrong with the rest of us.)
As Krista Sande-Kerback, age 16, wrote, "Although members of society may think modern standards of beauty and youth don't affect them, these standards have become so ingrained in our culture and manifested in our lives by the media that it is hard to be completely immune to them." The point is, it is a struggle that we all have to resist sometimes, but in truth, thinness doesn't equal happiness, dieting is not the solution, and it's better to focus on what's inside, not on fleeting qualities such as looks. Why bother wasting money and energy trying to reach an unattainable goal? If we learn to love our bodies as we are, we will be so much happier.
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