Why You’ll Never be Pretty

During the second world war in the 1940s, women sought functional, athletic bodies in order to fill the roles of men. In the ‘50s, well-nourished and full-bellied women were fashionable in the post-war world. The ‘60s idealised a slender body, while the ‘70s romanticised a leaner, more fit figure. My point is: beauty standards fluctuate. One decade admires a woman’s curves, yet the next renders them unfavoured. What about today, in 2022?

Anyone that passes time on social media resonates that for a woman to be conventionally beautiful, she must meet the typical criteria of large breasts and hips, a tiny waist, slender limbs, big lips, and flawless skin. The exaggerated hourglass figure – this “perfect” combination – can only be obtained through drastic (and sometimes dangerous) cosmetic and plastic surgery. The bottom line: our current beauty standards are not only toxic, but they are also unrealistic.

This may lead you to think: how exactly did these expectations get blown so out of proportion, catalysing extreme, unhealthy diets and eating disorders? In 1954, psychologist Leon Festinger developed the ‘Social Comparison Theory,’ “the idea that individuals determine their own social and personal worth based on how they stack up against others.” As humans, we inherently host an innate drive to compare ourselves to others, and that – combined with the superficiality of social media – can only have catastrophic consequences.

With photo-editing apps, make-up, altered lighting, and amplified filters, we assume that everyone – except us – is built naturally perfect. But I think we all know that that’s far from the truth! In 2019, almost 4 million people underwent cosmetic surgery and procedures in the US alone. Statistically, 78% of American teenagers are unsatisfied with their bodies, and 24 million people of the US population suffer from eating disorders.

It may sound like women are the only victims of body dysmorphia, but men haven’t been spared from today’s lethal beauty standards either. One of the most common sources of these toxic standards is the film and beauty industry itself. They are portrayed with unrealistic, god-like bodies that are unattainable without dangerous diets and digital editing. Actors have often confessed that they starved and dehydrated themselves for days before shooting scenes!

Social media is one of the first forms of competition, too; it’s easy to let these warped and doctored images of beauty make you think you’re not good enough. While the utopian solution would be eliminating social media altogether, but honestly, even I wouldn’t listen to myself with that advice. Instead, we should remind ourselves that not everything we see in the media is real. ‘Beauty’ is nothing but a perceptive lens; Beauty isn’t just blue eyes and blonde hair; Beauty isn’t just slim thighs and big lips; We need to remember that beauty is NOT ‘one size fits all’!