The Beauty Industry's Influences

            Recently I've been going to the gym consistently for about 3 weeks now, committing myself to a kickboxing class twice a week. With spring break quickly approaching my obsession to look “good” has definitely become intensified. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think spring break are dresses, shorts, tanning, bikinis, and the definite must, having a nice body to show off at the beach. You might be wondering why I am rammbling about trying to look good for spring break. Well this should be old news by now but it's true, girls are obessesed with looking good! Thanks to the influence of magazines and social media girls have become so strung on being perfect and looking perfect. So I ask myself what I think is “beautiful”? Of course beauty is perceived differently from person to person, yet the beauty industry has created an image of what girls are supposed to look like. I call this the four T’s: tall, tan, toned, and thin. I would say that most of the models I see on magazine ads have these bodies. It is understandable that some people may not help the fact that they are tall and thin but we have to remember that everyone is different therefore, short and curvy is beautiful and should be embraced.

            I wanted to start of my blog by proposing the question of "What is beauty?" and "What is considered beautiful?" The idea for this post came from a YouTube video that I found called “Beauty Pressure” and it inspired me to write about what exactly beauty means to me. If you watch the video, it shows a little girl and how the beauty industry influences society at such a young age with billboard ads of half-naked skinny women, skin care commercials, music videos, diet pills, etc. These advertisements certainly influence me at 19, so I wouldn't be shocked to see the psychologically effects it has on boys and girls at such a young age. These images create this idea that certain traits are considered beautiful and ultimately, if you don’t look like that you aren’t pretty enough. Although this may sound crazy, it is true and young girls are the ones who are really affected by these images. According to a documentary that is shown above titled “Miss Representation,” statistics have shown that “53% of teenage girls are unhappy with their bodies that number increases to 78% at age 17.” With this being said, I am not trying to put down the beauty industry, I am just trying to point out that over the last several decades there has been a negative stigma with the beauty industry and generalizing the perception of beauty. 


              Slowly but surely there have been changes made within this industry in the last couple of years. A huge advocate of diverse beauty is Dove. They have several campaign ads that embrace diversity in age, skin, and bodies to try and show that beauty is beyond a tall skinny model with big boobs, and that beauty should be represented by healthy bodies. Through there videos, Dove wants to make men and women understand that most of the time the bodies shown in beauty ads are impossible to achieve and they are a result of photoshop. Beauty comes from all shapes and sizes and this clip shows what their campaign ads consist of and how they promote "Real Beauty." (The videos are below.)

            So back to the question “What is beauty?” In my opinion, beauty is being able to embrace what you have and loving yourself for who you are and what you look like. I think it’s beautiful when a woman has self-confidence in herself and chooses to love her flaws. No one is perfect and girls need to learn to admire the beauty industry and all the fun products and fashion it has to offer, meanwhile learn how to embrace it into their own style and work with what they’ve got. I’ll admit it’s hard to do this especially with the constant habit of comparing yourself to others, but to me beauty comes from inside. It is sad to think that the obsession to be beautiful causes eating disorders at such a young age. But in time, tall, tan, toned, and thin will be out of style and hopefully companies will embrace diversity and minimize the idea that only thin is beautiful.