Personal Essay
Choose an issue of importance to you - the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope - and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.
Ideal Beauty
In our American culture today, it is not hard to see that the average woman feels like she has to have a flat stomach, long thin legs, and an otherwise proportionate body, in order to fit into society. Most women and young girls in our civilization are not happy with their bodies and the way they look. Today, if a woman is born with brown, curly hair she might feel like she has to have blonde, straight hair to fit in, as if somewhere there is a recipe for the perfect woman that calls for specific ingredients with exquisite taste. There is no recipe that I know of, but there is, however, something that is just as degrading. It is called the media - radio, television, magazines, movies - and it has been corrupting the minds of women and young girls all over the world for many years. The media, by way of their advertisements with drop dead gorgeous models, tells us that we are not good enough on our own and we need their products and services to look like their picture perfect, ideal women. Though it seems mere advertisement and entertainment, the media does permanent damage to the self esteem of women and young girls by constantly hammering their own views of the ideal beauty into their minds.
The media tells us what is hot and what is not. They tell us the most popular trends and show us by example what to do and where to go to attain those trends. They show us that it is ok to have an eating disorder if it can help you to become a fashion model. But can we turn to the media when our children and our friends are suffering from depression and harming their bodies in order to reach their unrealistic goals? Somewhere along the line these young women were given the impression that thinner is always better. The media has engrained in our minds that "thin is in", and "stout is most definitely out". This causes young girls to be extremely critical of themselves and take outrageous measures to conform to what they perceive as the cultural "ideal beauty".
A culture that emphasizes thinness and dieting is pointed to by many experts for being at least partly responsible for the prevalence of eating disorders in the U.S. When a young girl buys a Cosmo or other fashion magazine usually the first thing she will see is a beautiful model on the front cover with a long sleek body and her hair blowing in the wind. Quite frequently, these magazines will have captions on the front telling the reader how their favorite actor or actress lost weight and how they can too. As the young girl opens the magazine she will inevitably see an advertisement with a goddess-like character that tells her if she buys the product that is being advertised she, too, can look like that. Occasionally the reader will attain the product, use it, and realize that it did not make her look like the woman in the picture. This causes one of two responses: either the girl feels like the product wasn't made to work well, or she feels like the product just does not work on her because she does not have the foundations of beauty. Usually, the latter will occur resulting in the lowering of the girl's self esteem. What the average person does not realize is that the people they see in magazines are composed using techniques including airbrushing, digital alteration, and cosmetic surgery which "increase the unrealistic nature of these images as standards for self-evaluation" (Clay, Vignoles, Dittmar 2005).
So how do we convince the media that our children, friends, mothers, co-workers, students, teachers, bosses, and employees are more important to us than their expensive advertising and fancy products? How do we explain to our children and friends etc. that they do not have to look like the models on TV to be beautiful, and that beauty lies within? How do we believe this ourselves if all we have ever known is the exact opposite? We must make a stand. Somehow we must take the steps, even if they are minuscule in size, to be the beautiful people we were born to be and not what the media says we must be in order to fit in. There are too many people becoming ill because of eating disorders. There are too many young girls that think they are not pretty enough. They lack self-esteem that would otherwise prevent them from possibly becoming anorexic or bulimic.
A government study that was commissioned together by the Department of Health and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport found that "participation in the arts", such as music or sports, not only shows significant signs of better health, but it also "boosts self-esteem and reduces feelings of isolation and exclusion" ("Adults Learning"). Simply doing something that you enjoy is a great way to take your mind off of what you think you are not and helps you to find out who you actually are. Parental involvement is also a key factor in boosting self-esteem. Some parents do not realize just how much influence they have on their children. Just by blocking certain channels on the TV can make a significant difference in the life of a child. Furthermore, parental guidance could possibly reduce or prevent poor media influences such as low self-esteem and eating disorders.
Participation in programs such as Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty can give one the knowledge and confidence that is needed to survive in today's world. Public schools should incorporate programs in their teaching that are designed to build self-esteem. Since children spend a great deal of their early years in school it is the perfect opportunity to reach out to them. We have learned from the Media that it is better to reach children while they are young and continue to reach them as they grow older. We need to counter attack what the media is trying to do. It is time for America to stop allowing the media to influence her children. Maybe if enough people stand up for their beliefs we can make a difference. It should not be them against us. There should only be one, just us. That means there should not be one group of people, the media, torturing the rest of us. Now is the time to take affirmative action and put the media back in its place. Now is the time to say "NO! No more unrealistic beauty! No more 'miracle products' that make us feel like we cannot be beautiful on our own!" God made us to be exactly who we are and we do not need some guy in an office somewhere making up the next big thing that is going to make us feel even worse. The media should simply be for entertainment. Not just with high fashion supermodels and drop dead gorgeous women, and men for that matter. It's time for the media to be more open minded and think outside of their perfectly airbrushed world, which, in reality, does not exist.
Hi.
Your style reminds me of the days when I was writing argumentative essays. You essay has a clear purpose, the language and flow are perfect, examples and quotations are appropriate. Everything in your essay shows what makes great argumentative essays great.
However, I feel that this essay lacks your own understanding of the situation. Fat girls, skinny girls, low self-esteem girls, happy girls, sad girls, they are all not you. Since this is a personal essay, I think it would be a good idea to add your own experience somewhere. Explain how you are affected by the media and how you want to overcome the problem will be much stronger than what you think others should think and do.
Your language is really good!
G L~
As I read this, I see that your theme is the way media makes girls feel like they must be a certain way. This is a common theme, and it makes me think you should try to find an interesting angle on the issue and tell us a lot of things we do not already know. Right now you are telling the reader a lot that she already knows. This is VERY well written, though!
Participation in programs such as Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty can give one the knowledge and confidence that is needed to survive in today's world.--- this reverence to Dove's seems arbitrary and abrupt in the last paragraph, there. Give some explanation. And better yet, precede this sentence with a good topic sentence for that last paragraph.
:-)
