We promote the Skinny Ideal , but is it really ideal?

The world is filled with skinny pretty girls, all talking about how they are not skinny enough.  The people school, my internship, my friends, the strangers I encounter, everyone is obsessed with weight.  Most women don’t ask themselves    “Am I healthy?”  The concern is simply  “Am I thin enough?”

            Why have we all adopted this single definition of beauty?   The media is every place and as a result, it influences all aspects of our lives.  We watch TV, we read magazines, we pass billboards and all of them promote common themes, like the single idea of beauty.  The women in advertisements are always extremely skinny and almost flawless.  We are so quick to get angry with people for bossing us around or trying to tell us what to think.  Ironically, the media tells us everyday what to think and how to feel about others.  As bossy as the media seems to be we do not get angry at it.  We don’t know who is coming up with these ideas and yet we have allowed some powerful part of society to shape our concept of beauty, which in turn has caused a lot of angst amongst the majority of women (even if we don’t want to admit it).   It goes back to the Marxist idea of how there exist a hegemony of the ruling class oppressing the people, in this case we, the consumers, are the less powerful and the media industry and its leaders are the ones oppressing us. 

            We demonstrate how we have adopted the ideologies, which the media promotes, by constantly comparing ourselves to others based on our weight.   This is a prime example of the idea of our false consciousness.  The consciousness is consumerism. The media is only concerned with making profits.  Advertisements are about attracting the viewer and selling the product even if that means hurting the public.   Media outlets simply want to bring the audience to the advertisers. The false consciousness is the concept of beauty, which many women have come to believe in.  We spend time comparing ourselves to others and images based on the “skinny” concept of beauty and yet it is detrimental to our health and state of mind.  The media perpetuates the standard of beauty, and we only continue this vicious cycle.  People are attracted to this almost unattainable beauty and thus we watch movies, watch TV shows, and read magazines, which contain these images.  The media realizes that this is how they can sell their products and in turn, they continue to promote theses ideals of beauty.  As a result of all of this we are in a viscous circle with the media.  The media promotes a concept of beauty, we promote it and thus the media continues to demonstrate it through different mediums.

 

I just want to say that I had written this earlier in the week and did not realize someone else had talked about being skinny in the media.  Sorry if I mention similar ideas I honestly had not read any of the post before writing this.