Beautiful Flaws

“The hatred of your own female body has become normalised to the point that listing things you hate about yourself is a perfectly normal conversation. Telling the lady at the store that you can’t wear that dress because you hate your upper-arms or discussing weight-loss with a complete stranger are everyday happenings. In fact, it’s even a way for young girls and women to bond. You see, in girl world, hating yourself can be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”- Anonymous Source.

Over time, beauty standards for young girls has changed, it was not until the late twentieth century that thinness was beautiful and desirable. Even from only sixty years ago, the standards have changed and evolved. A good example would be Marilyn Monroe, in her time many girls and women aspired to be like her, she was the face of beauty. Marilyn Monroe was in fact a size 12, nowadays in society if you were a size 12…you may as well be dead. You would immediately feel pressure to lose weight. Why? Because now the face of beauty is a slim supermodel who weighs 90 pounds and is a size double zero. One figure which is there in any and every form of media is the woman. Not just any woman, but a woman who has a “perfect” body. She has a tiny waist, slim legs, flawless skin, perfectly sized and placed eyes, lips and nose, and dressed in the latest fashion or next to nothing at all. Is this woman real, does anybody know this woman in real life? The answer is no, she is a photoshopped person. The media portrays what a "normal" body should look like, when in reality it’s not real.

Mass media is designed to reach large audiences through technology. Its purpose is meant to give information we need to function as a society. Mass media is everywhere, there is no escaping from it. From the moment you wake up until you fall asleep you are bombarded with media especially now everyone is on-line, all the time. Almost every home in Singapore has at least one television, access to the internet, and cell phones. “When I was younger I’m sure the impact of the media on my body image was greater, you would see an ad in a magazine or on the television, but then you would turn off the program or flip to the next page, it sure wasn’t as in my face as it is now. Now, I ignore it…but these days you can’t escape it as easily as I could”
-Patricia Driver.

The media has a wide impact on people, particularly in female teens and children. A 2012 a study showed that even girls at the age of five aren’t happy with their body and begin dieting at the age of only eight years old! “Girls who are a size nine aren’t ugly. Just because you aren’t as tall or as skinny as the model on that magazine, does’t make you ugly…teaching young girls- children in fact, that they are only beautiful if they look a certain way. That is ugly.”-Rachel Driver

The average woman sees 400 to 500 advertisements per day, and by the time she is 17-years old, she has received over 250,000 commercial messages through the media. This constant exposure to female orients advertisements may influence girls to become self-conscious about their bodies and to obsess over their physical appearance as a measure of their worth.-Mass Media Effects On A Girls Body Image (Author, Unknown)

A study in America in 2012 states that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness for women, and that in 2012 ten million women in america have eating disorders, and 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems. “Mass media definitely provides really unrealistic expectations for young people and how their bodies look, so it make them feel like they won't be able to achieve anything or ever be good enough unless they look that way, thats why people can have eating disorders and go into depression.” - Akanksha Shukla

Another study in Australian high school girls, 76% of the girls wished they were thinner, 50% have tried to lose weight, and only 16% were happy with their body weight. In extreme cases, girls begin to shows signs of wanting to lose weight around the age of five, but statistics show that “95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25. Why? Because they don’t fit the description of a “Real woman” or having the “perfect figure” they are not flawless and shouldn’t be taught to think that being flawless is normal. They want to change, they want to be that girl, that girl who everyone thinks is beautiful. We all want to be beautiful, but in this society…no-one ever is.

How can you be positive? In a world so hateful and flawed. Your first step is to appreciate all that you and your body can do. Every day your body carries you closer to your dreams. Celebrate all of the amazing things your body does for you- running, dancing, breathing, laughing, dreaming, etc. You should keep a list of things you like about yourself, things that aren’t related to how much you weigh or what you look like. Read your list often. You can add to it, the more you become aware of more things to like about yourself. You have to remind yourself that true beauty is not simply skin deep. When you feel good about yourself and who you are as a person, you carry yourself with confidence, self-acceptance, and openness that makes you beautiful, regardless of whether you look like a supermodel. Look at yourself as a whole person. When you see yourself in a mirror don’t focus on specific body parts. See yourself as you want others to see you–as a whole person. Because you’re never going to be accepted by others, if you don’t accept yourself first.