Caroline Hoertz
Logsdon-3rd
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”…A time honored quote, dating back to the 3rd century BC. This quote is typically used to make one understand that there are many definitions of beauty and that beauty is very subjective. Although this is a nice, feel good, kind of quote, I honestly think Martha Beck’s expansion on this quote is far more modern. She says, “Although, beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, the feeling of being beautiful exists solely in the mind of the beheld.” Martha Beck is a best selling author and columnist for O: The Oprah Magazine and is truly in touch with what has happened to the minds of women today who are bombarded with images of what beauty should look like. When women try to define true beauty, self image can be their own worst enemy.
The documentary America The Beautiful, takes a hard look at American women’s desire for unattainable beauty that is portrayed by the media and by advertisers. Sadly, most of the advertisements using models are edited to perfection by airbrushing or special photo effects. However, this trick is causing women to go to great lengths to become more beautiful and this trick is also training men to seek out this fake perfection. One model interviewed, in America The Beautiful, is 6” tall and weighs 130 pounds and she has been told she must lose 15 pounds. Her quote when asked about her health is “Health does not become an option in this business.” She goes on to say, “If you’re going to worry about your health, go to college.”
Beauty is defined in today’s world by models and celebrities. The Annual Victoria Secret Fashion Show is a day that many men wait for all year long and a day that many women dread. Eleven girls strut down the runway, barely dressed, exposing their perfectly toned and tanned bodies. Now don’t get me wrong, these women are beautiful. But because of shows like this, many women feel pressured into thinking they should be about 5’10 averaging 110 pounds. That is the average height and weight of Victoria Secret Angels. 5’10 and 110 pounds. According to Weight Watchers the healthy weight range for a woman 5’ 10 is from 139-174. Women see shows like this and attempt to force themselves to become this size, which in some women’s case is physically impossible and certainly NOT healthy.
Women look at celebrities and compare themselves to what the world sees as beautiful. What the world doesn’t see is the pressure these celebrities face to maintain their beauty and the lengths that they will go to keep it. In a 2012 article in Seventeen Magazine, Demi Lovato gives a heart wrenching story of her struggle with self-image. To try to keep up with her own expectations of beauty, she has suffered through eating disorders and resorted to cutting herself. Heidi Montag, from the MTV show The Hills, started off as a natural beauty. With self-image issues and the pressures of being in the public eye, Heidi admits to being obsessed with plastic surgery, reportedly having ten surgery procedures in one day. In a revealing article in People Magazine, she says that within a couple of years, she had transformed herself into a whole new person, a person she thought would be considered “beautiful” to the many eyes that were watching her.
The fashion industry and advertising world have created an unrealistic ideal woman. The unattainable weight and unattainable beauty portrayed by media and advertising only furthers self image problems in women today. I will end my speech with another quote, “Perception is reality.” Unfortunately, for many women in today’s media-driven world, the perception of beauty is defined by an unrealistic and often fake picture. This distortion causes men to seek this perfection in a woman and causes many women to obsess about this perfection. The reality is women’s self-image is destroyed by basing their goals on make believe.
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