Society/media
Do you have perfect skin? Are you skinny or considered smart? Stating at a young age, society portrays an image for girls and guys to live up to. If you don’t look, think, or act a certain way, your not smart, attractive, or normal. You can no longer be yourself without the judgment of others. We’ve all been told as children what we should look like and what our futures should hold. Yet people wonder why teens have such poor self esteems.
Appearance
“We are never happy with what we look like, we’ll always want what we can’t have” – Michele Hawley. This is because everywhere we look in media, we see perfection. For example, in magazines, tv, and even places as simple as grocery stores. When you think of beautiful, what comes to mind? For me, media has painted an image of what beautiful is considered. Starting off with one of the biggest problems in todays society, weight. We are constantly being told to lose weight because if we do so, our lives we significantly be better in some way. You rarely see being curvy or thick as “beautiful” in media. The next thing is how you present yourself. The way you dress automatically reflects who you are as a person or so media wants you to think. If you don’t dress a certain way, as in band names, your different. Unique is no longer special.
Not only does media affect girls but also guys. Boy/men from ages 13-25 (roughly), are suppose to be physically fit, and tall, dark and handsome. “Media has portrayed an image for men to look perfect, almost as if we were from a magazine. And if we look like that way, then we will get the perfect girl” – anonymous. It’s sad to say this is what the world has come and hopefully one day this will change. “What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.” – Scott Westerfeld, Uglies
Ciara Hawley 