Unrealistic Toxic Beauty And Depression. -Chapter One
“you having concerns about how you look is not in itself a mental illness, but it can trigger a range of problems from psychological to physical problems” ~anonymous
Whether you want to agree with me or not, most of you reading this right now are aware of how you look including me. We have all had a bad hair day, worried whether we are wearing the right clothes for a particular event and worried about how our body look in those clothes. We also might have asked ourselves severally why is my stomach big and flabby? why are my legs this way? Trust me I’ve been there.
Men are not actually locked out from this group chat. Researched showed that 18% of boys are highly concerned about their weight and physique and in 2014, a study showed the US market for men’s personal care products which earned about 4.1 billion US dollars. (surprise right?) now that was 2014, seems the men are really paying more attention to self-care which is amazing but in this post,I will be talking about the women and your feedback will determine if I should write about “ Men’s beauty standards.”
What is Beauty? Beauty is subjective. There are many factors that comes in place when it comes to beauty such as culture, tribes, time of living etc. For example, for the Asian people, they considered white skin beautiful while the westerners desire tan dark skin tone. In the 19th century, in Japan, teeth darkening was considered beautiful whereas, now, it is all about having white teeth. In the Fiji, traditionally, women with larger bodies are considered beautiful but in the modern world, it is all about being skinny. For those who don’t know about the Fiji people. Fiji is a country in the south pacific. It is an archipelago of more than 300 islands. I.e., basically, it’s an island country in Melanesia.
It is important to know that beauty standard is constantly changing because there will always be new trends and style.
Today’s beauty standard is all about having a slim face, flawless skin, no acne, no stretch marks, no cellulites, larger hips and breasts, tiny/smaller waist line, hour glass body shape etc., basically A BARBIE. Universal beauty standard goes way back to internalized racism, ideologies and colorism due to the colonialization of the western world. This is a time of racial supremacy that dehumanized people of color. We were told by the whites that our color is inferior to theirs, that the color white is the best and white is beauty. Europeans took away versions of beauty from people of color and their cultures.
Ok, let’s have a mini history class. After the Korean war of 1950s and early 1960s, the American military doctors performed a double eyelids surgery to fix the oriental eyes of native patients. The American troops performed this surgery on Korean women because that will consider them to be more attractive and beautiful. Really? and they also performed the surgery on Korean men because they believe their squinty eyes meant that the Americans couldn’t trust them.
It was around this time that the plastic obsession in Korea began and people wanted to look more Caucasian. It is very common that people want to change their body features like our noses and our eyes so we can all appear more Caucasians which also gave birth to black women wanting straight hair. Ironically, the modern beauty standards/features are now shifting into the natural features of a black woman. (yes, you just read that). Did you know about some white girls who believed that they are black? They went to the extent of spending 9 hours in a tanning bath just to get their body tanned to a black woman.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not against having a plastic surgery or wanting to be black or white. I mean if that will make you happy and confident in your skin and body coupled with the fact that you can afford it, we are good! But what I am against is the audacity of these celebrities who promotes weight loss pills and tea, bleaching creams and weight trainers on their social media pages, telling young girls and women who look up to them that they attained and achieved their body features by exercising, dieting and using those weight loss tea and pills.
The Kardashian have had history with weight loss fads which they were later sued for but that didn’t stop them from doing weight loss sponsorship on Instagram, making false claims that this is how they maintain and achieve their body. It is well known that Kim’s brand is basically known for literally selling her body shape and the Kardashian often denies undergoing any plastic changes on their body…okurrrrrr…. we moveeeee.
When we talk about mental health, we talk a lot about the brain, however mental health isn’t all in the brain, it can affect and be affected by our bodies too. I will be talking about what happens when our bodies have a negative impact on our mental health and how to have a healthier body image.
Self Esteem: It’s a person overall sense of self-worth/personal value. In short, it is how much you like and appreciate yourself.
Body Image: It describes how you view your body, not just in mirrors or in photos, but in your mind. Body Image encompasses the thoughts and feelings about one’s body, including how it feels to move in that body, one’s perceptions about Body shape and beliefs about appearance.
Check next post for Chapter Two.