Says it all. In order to be beautiful, be be-YOU-tiful! The more genuine and confident you are, the better others can see how wonderful you are. Everybody will have their flaws, being able to embrace it separates you from everybody else.
I read an essay for my English class a couple months ago called “Devastating Beauty,”
by student writer, Teal Pfeifer. This essay is one of the main reasons why I decided to create a beauty blog about diversity. It’s a very well written essay about the growing problem of females’ desire for unrealistically thin bodies. The media has defined beauty as being unhealthily thin and has created a breeding ground for poor self-image and eating disorders in young and old females. Luckily, the author suggests that fellow women should stop being victims of what the media wants them to be, and one way to do this is stop buying magazines that depicted emaciating thin models. I definitely agree with Pfeifer. The advertisement industry makes a lot of money out of displaying items in magazines, billboards, and television to make consumers think that if they had that product they would love it because it looks perfect or pretty. This is the ideal strategy because who wouldn’t want to look at or have aesthetically pleasing things. But this is at the cost of fostering self doubt and inadequacy to those that can’t obtain whatever the ad is depicting. Women are not all born the same, so why must we conform to a society that can’t accept us for being as unique as we were created; no matter our weight or body type. One of the most shocking things I learned from Pfeifer’s essay was that by the age of seventeen a young female has seen an average of 250,000 ads of underweight women, who have achieved their size, for the most part, from anorexia, bulimia or drug use. (“The Skinny”) Those thin models are found in all kinds of ads such as beauty products, clothing, and even cigarettes. It is quite sad that just the image of an extremely thin woman can reduce so much self-esteem in so many other females and force them into extreme diets and workouts. There’s nothing wrong with exercising and eating properly, it’s just that a lot of females take these to such extremely that are unhealthy. The purpose of eating right and exercising is to be healthier, not less healthy by making yourself too unnecessarily thin. Below is a citation of the essay along with a link to the actual text. Enjoy. Pfeifer, Teal. “Devastating Beauty.” The St. Martin’s Handbook. Ed. Andrea A. Lunsford. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 214-218. Print. http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/everyday_writer3e/studentwriting/pdf/pfeifermlaargumentessay.pdf |
Author: NicoleI'm an African American, specifically Nigerian, college graduate from Southern California. Archives
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