Is Today’s Media having a damaging impact on 21st-Century beauty?

21st-century beauty standards are portrayed as quite straightforward: tall, long-legged, white-skinned, all in an athletic-looking body. It’s amazing how for many women this has become the prime definition of beautiful. Worryingly, it’s young girls who have come to believe that a Victoria Secret Model’s body is the ultimate goal when it comes to aesthetics.  In reality, these hopeful body goals are down to what we call media: Hollywood star Instagram accounts, magazines headlines “how to achieve that summer bod!”, and model pictures with the caption: #goals, all of which are being used by the younger generation to compare and depict all their flaws.

It saddens me to think that many young women will put themselves down for not looking a certain way, instead of embracing who they are, they will criticise themselves,a habit we’re all guilty of doing. They think they’re unattractive, ugly and go as far as using words like ‘disgusting’. I’m sure you’re thinking “that’s a harsh word to describe yourself” but, the reality is it is these types of personal judgements that lead girls to drastic measures to be ‘beautiful’. This ugly turn causes young girls to forget to value themselves and can lead to threatening health issues.

As a victim of Anorexia, I googled perfect bodies, pointed at them, and said “I want to look like that.” I would look through magazine articles which told you what eating/exercising regimes stars use to look the way they do. I was obsessed. Many praised me for my quick weight-loss, and at the time I enjoyed everybody praising and complimenting me for my quick achievements. But, it’s impressive how people find a 16-year-old obsessing to lose 10 kilos to be a success, a body which I realise now is perfectly fine.

It was only when I began to look sick that people worried. And this, like it did for me, happens to so many girls, actually 1 in 5 women struggle with an eating disorder or disordered eating. I believe this all comes from the stigma of what the perfect body is created by the media. It is an extremely easy trap to fall into, when you are naturally critical of yourself, you are therefore, already placing yourself into a vulnerable position.

Not everyone falls into the category of having a disorder but, frighteningly many do live thinking they’re not good enough, oblivious to their true self-worth. Here is the important part: humans are all built differently, we all have different metabolisms, different body types, and come from completely different heritages. We fail to forget that genes play a massive role in how we look, and the issue is that these givens just can’t be changed. It is so much easier and less self-destructive when we learn to embrace our personal traits. You would never taunt the people who gave you your body, the people you love, so why do it to yourself?

Being curvy is not being fat, having an athletic body is not looking like a boy, being flat-chested doesn’t mean you’re an 8-year-old girl. Most importantly not looking like your favourite celebrity does not under any circumstances mean you’re any less beautiful. Our society needs to understand that girls are spending so much time on achieving something unattainable. Celebrities dedicate their lives to the way they look but, young girls have futures to aspire to. 90 % of people with eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25, the peak ages whereas young adults we are trying to figure who we are, what we want to do, and who we want to be. How can anybody live to their full potential when they can’t find self-confidence within themselves? How will girls be the best they can be if they personally don’t believe that they’re worthy enough?

21st-century beauty standards are slowly changing and people are starting to not shy away from who they are. We’re now seeing more curvy models setting their own standards and a variety of celebrities speaking out on body positivity. However, this is just the beginning there is still a lot of work left in convincing our younger generation to start loving themselves, before putting their energy into looking like someone else.

Feature Contributor, Astrid Sofia Flores Moya