Unattainable Beauty

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​Images of gorgeously thin women are everywhere now-a-days, from billboards and TV advertisements to movies and the media. Thin models are considered the “in” thing in advertising and thus it is impossible to escape from images of these women but what effect do these women have on the average woman who is not a size zero and is not airbrushed to perfection by a professional?? The effects are disastrous. Normal women now consider themselves fat and compare themselves with those tiny percent of women who become models and who keep themselves underweight using unhealthy means such as fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise and even self-induced vomiting and thus normal women resort to these methods to try and achieve that beauty as well. It was found in a study that girls as young as 5 and 6 have started to diet just to lose weight because they are not only exposed to so called “perfect bodies” but also because everything that they use promotes thinness, even their toys. If a normal woman was given the body proportions of a Barbie doll then her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body and her waist would be so narrow that she would only be able to contain half of her liver inside her body and she would soon die from malnutrition. These girls are exposed to beauty that is physically impossible for them to obtain yet they still try and torture themselves in the hope that they can look like those perfect dolls. Around 50% to 70% of women whose weight is considered perfect for their body consider themselves fat and this is a huge blow to a women’s self esteem which is then further harmed by other friends and acquaintances commenting on their bodies thus making them even more self conscious.
Most women believe themselves to be overweight and this raises confidence and self image issues in them which can sometimes even lead to a person entering depression. These women are being fed these images by the fashion and cosmetics industry in an attempt to improve their own sales but at what cost? At our confidence? At our self esteem? Or even sometimes at the cost of our happiness? This problem is not just a problem anymore, it’s a complete epidemic with most of the women and especially our younger generation effected by it who are infatuated with the body that is being sold to them on their television screens and something must be done about it immediately. This culture of thinness must be stopped!

Mahin Kashif