Unrealistic Beauty Standards

Today, we are constantly bombarded with unrealistic beauty standards. These are extremely toxic and can lead to a variety of consequences.

It seems as if beauty standards are changing almost all the time, which makes it nearly impossible to fit in with them 24/7. Social media is the main contributor to these beauty standards. Almost everyone uses some type of social media, and on these platforms, we constantly see celebrities praised for things like seemingly flawless complexions, tiny waists, flat stomachs, and perfectly proportional features. While this itself isn’t an issue, the fact is that a lot of those features aren’t real and yet these things are constantly force-fed to younger audiences.

It’s no secret that most content posted by celebrities has been edited, and a lot of the time these celebrities get cosmetic surgery to help push this agenda of being perfect. Editing photos or getting these surgical procedures is completely fine, as long as the person is open with their audience about it. When these celebrities try to hide the fact that their posts are edited or they had some plastic surgery, it makes younger people believe that they are all natural and might even cause them to question why they don’t look that way.

There are plenty of consequences due to the unrealistic standards, such as low self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, anxiety, and body dysmorphia. It has gotten so bad that even elementary school students are worrying about their weight. These are children, they should not have to worry about why their body doesn’t look like their favorite influencers. They are growing human beings—acne, body hair, and their proportions are completely normal! It is devastating to think that anyone should have to worry about these things, but especially our generation's youth.

The media works hard to create this definition of what "beautiful" is when in reality, everyone is beautiful in their own unique ways. Recently, social media has been pushing the idea that having very Eurocentric features is what’s considered beautiful and the standard right now. These harm almost everyone, but especially children and people of color. Eurocentric beauty standards are things like fair skin, a small nose, a thin figure, high cheekbones, big eyes, and plump lips. Some of these things are unrealistic because, for some, they are just unachievable. For example, a person with a darker complexion cannot magically get a fair complexion, and a child cannot change something like their nose shape. Some of these examples are technically achievable, but for most people they require some type of cosmetic surgery.

Another thing that encourages toxic beauty standards is known as "pretty privilege." Pretty privilege is when an individual benefits from fitting in with current beauty standards. In an article for the New York Post, Andre Court writes: "The content creators have shared videos discussing their ‘pretty privilege’ saying they’re showered with free gifts and attention simply for being conventionally attractive." Obviously, when people hear this, they will want to be victims of pretty privilege because everyone wants to benefit from free gifts and increased opportunities. This can be very dangerous though, because it can cause people to develop eating disorders or have low self-esteem, which then leads to future issues like health problems.

While pretty privilege seems like sunshine and rainbows, that is not the entire case. There’s no doubt that it would be nice to receive free gifts and attention from others, but there are also downsides that often get overlooked. Many people who experience pretty privilege have come out to explain some of the drawbacks of that privilege. In an article by Marta Cliff for The Sun, an individual named Liz discussed some of her feelings after experiencing pretty privilege. Liz said: "I dyed my hair blonde and lost 50 pounds and immediately saw a huge difference in how I was treated in general by people I knew and people I didn’t know." While it was nice to be treated well, it doesn’t make people feel good about themselves once they realize that they only started getting treated better after they started to fit in with beauty standards. Most of the time people do this subconsciously; they tend to treat conventionally attractive people better than others, and that's because a lot of us have grown up around it and it’s ingrained in our subconscious. We see it on television and in movies all the time, people that aren’t seen as attractive are often playing the roles of the villain or antagonist, while the people considered attractive are the heroes or protagonists. Pretty privilege continues to encourage toxic ideologies, and it is something we need to break away from.

It will not be easy to just forget about beauty standards because we are constantly being influenced by the media, but it is necessary for us to progress as a society. We need to learn to love our features, no matter where they come from or what they look like. Accepting ourselves is one of the first steps toward liberating ourselves from toxic beauty standards, because once we see the unique beauty in ourselves, we will be much more likely to see it in others. We need to change our mindset and become more accepting of others and their appearance because, at the end of the day, another person’s appearance has nothing to do with us, so we shouldn’t be worried about it anyways.