The Beauty Ideal

Women who are thin and tall, have perfect skin, and are white and heterosexual seem to fit into the “Beauty Ideal” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 208). The media is constantly telling girls that they need to be skinny to be accepted. The desire to fit into the “beauty ideal” can lead to issues much greater than wanting to fit into a size two. Kim Chernin’s “The Tyranny of Slenderness,” she describes the “beauty ideal” as an unattainable goal that we are all trying to obtain (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 208). Eating disorders have become much more prevalent in our society, and this is largely due to the media’s portrayal of beauty. Girls and women are constantly striving, and starving, to be skinny, when in reality, they are causing much more harm than they are good.

Eating disorders, such as Anorexia, ruin women’s lives; they shut themselves out from the world and are consumed by their desire to control their weight. In Abra Fortune Chernik’s “The Body Politic,” she states, “eating disorders affect us all on a personal and a political level,” (Chernik 602). By this she means that even if you do not have a full-blown eating disorder, most of us are affected by the desire to fit into the “beauty ideal,” and we are consumed with negative thoughts about our bodies. We have grown accustomed to the “toxic cultural environment” that surrounds us and dictates what our bodies are supposed to look like (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 208). Advertisements for diets and weight loss supplements and photo shopped images of models flood the media, putting a damper on girls’ self confidence and causing emotional, and even physical, turmoil for girls who are still just trying to figure out who they are.

The “beauty ideal” says that being overweight is a terrible thing. If being overweight were negatively affecting your health, then yes, maybe it would be a good idea to drop a few pounds, if it means you will be healthier. But usually this issue of being overweight is more for aesthetics than anything else (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 209). Many women have begun to accept their size and are doing positive things in the women’s community to change the way we view beauty. While the “beauty ideal” has had an extremely negative impact on women’s lives, at least there has been some good come out of it, too.

Works Cited

Chernik, Abra F. "The Body Politic." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York: Mcgraw Hill, 2010. 599-603.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Health.” Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 207-223.