As a
teenage girl, I’m pretty self-conscious about my appearance, especially when I’m
around other teenage girls who I feel, look better than I do. I know I’m not
the only girl in America who feels this way either. According to Oprah.com, 76.2% of teen-agers
are self-conscious or dissatisfied with their appearance. Over 70% of 15 to 17
year old girls avoid going to school or other public places when they are
worried about their looks. And according to dosomething.org an astounding 75%
of these girls have engaged in negative activities such as self-harm, bullying,
disordered eating, or abuse alcohol and drugs.
Young
women feel they have to be perfect because that’s what society says; you have
to wear a certain brand of clothing and wear your hair and make-up a certain way
and you have to be so tall and you have to have the right amount of skin
showing off and you have to have a certain facial structure, the list is never
ending. Some girls believe that they have to be what society tells them to be.
Through
all of this crap society tells us to be we get lost in what we should be and
not in what we want to be; we lose our own self-worth and aren’t even catering
to our own needs anymore, society has made us mind-less, soul-less clones. We forget
that we are part of society and that we do in fact have a voice. We get so lost
in society’s standard of beauty that we forget who we are, you’ve forgotten who you are. That’s a really scary thought,
to know that you have no idea who you even are anymore.
It’s
so sad that we don’t even realize what we’re doing to ourselves, or what we’re
doing to our families, or our society. By obeying the standards of beauty
society has set for us we’re just feeding the fire. It’s even sadder to think
that we’re afraid to be who we are, but in all honesty we are afraid, I’m
afraid.
Self-confidence
isn’t about going with the flow, it’s about stepping out and being your own person,
even if you’re scared. It’s about loving who you are, not what society wants you to be. Yeah, it’s hard, you don’t
want to be judged and ridiculed, but isn’t it worth it if you know who you are?
If you’re just going with the flow and not catering your own personal needs you’re
just judging and ridiculing yourself. Now think, really think, who are you? Be who you want to be and not who
you’re told to be.
What do you think has a bigger impact in society, the fact that kids toys don't make plus sized figures and encourage that to be pretty you need to look stick thin, or the fact that clothing retail stores have a larger stock of double zero items than they do extra large?
ReplyDeletehonestly I think they both have a huge impact on our generation and the future generation because we grow up thinking that we have to be as skinny and pretty as Barbie and when we grow up we're expected to be Barbie. so when we see all these other girls in double zeros, we think "hey I need to look like that" but in reality, the girls that do look like that are starving themselves so they can look like that. it's an endless cycle of how we are and who society wants us to be and its stupid.
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