Society's Beauty Standards

I'm sick and tired. I'm sick and tired of people telling me what I can and can’t wear; I'm sick of beauty standards that have been inflicted on both men and women at such a young age. No, I'm not talking about your parents not wanting you to go out in a certain item of clothing, I'm talking about society telling what is flattering to your body shape and what's not and society telling you that you MUST cover up all your imperfections or else the staring occurs. “Ew, look at her stomach she's so fat how can she be wearing that bikini!?” or “Look at her little matchstick legs and her ribs- there's nothing of her! She needs to eat a hamburger!” are things so commonly heard by people all over the world in hushed whispers and giggles that it has become the societal norm for all of us. Despite this, humans judging other humans comes out purely from insecurities that we all have of ourselves. People aren't generally horrible, but even if you haven't directly laughed at a human's weight or clothes, you've most probably thought to yourself “Wow she/he is fat” or “Oh my gosh how is he/she so skinny!” even if you have felt bad about it after. This comes from the practically brainwashing beauty standards that society inflicts on everyone. This “brainwashing” comes from endless photos of beautiful skinny models everywhere we look.

On social media and even shopping we are bombarded with beauty standards that are subliminally put there for us to longingly look at the models smiling back. I'm not putting down models though- they work exceptionally hard to look they way they do and also work so hard to get where they are. However, imagine spending so much effort to make your body look a certain way for somebody else to Photoshop it to make it “perfect”. There is no perfect with people, we come in a range of sizes so I wish that society would stop inflicting unrealistic ‘beautiful hourglass figures' to be my ‘goal’. Wouldn’t you feel down if you trained hours and hours on end just to get your body Photoshopped- then what was the point? Also, once the pictures are out there, girls and boys will obsess over the altered fake figure that is almost impossible to achieve without plastic surgery or more. This leads to ‘diet pills’. Sometimes it makes me sick knowing that there are millionaires benefiting off of people's insecurities, sometimes making us sick with their fake products, and even more desperate when they don’t work as promised.

There are unspoken rules that everyone just knows- for better or for worse. You may not notice but these have been drilled into us simply just by our surroundings. Let me ask you this- have you even seen pictures of a plus size model wearing a bikini or a crop top being put on display? Not much. It’s this unspoken rule that if you're what's considered ‘plus size’ then you must not have your stomach on show, or else people will tut and stare at you. Evidence of this is when I went into Primark looking for a swimming costume, the only ‘plus size’ model who was barely bigger than the other ‘regular’ models was modeling the ‘tummy waist control swimsuit one piece’ whilst the other models were sporting regular swimming costumes such as one pieces and bikinis. To me this suggested that ‘plus size’ women should only be wearing special ‘control’ swimming costumes. Despite this, I know that loads of women would feel much more comfortable wearing ‘control’ as they they may believe it will make them look ‘skinnier’. However, I think that should not be the case and I feel that they should wear what they want and be comfortable in their own skin, instead of society making them believe that they must wear that one specific swimsuit due to the fact that it's ‘control’ and will hide normal things in a human body such as some rolls of fat. Believe or not some people have them and I wish I could embrace them without getting silently judged.

Another thing I saw going shopping was this model in M&S modelling jeans, however her legs were so very clearly photo shopped. You see this due to the fact that her ankles were the same size as her thighs, which clearly isn't realistic! I wish all of this would change, I really do. If we start spreading body positivity around the world then this wouldn't be a problem. If the world around us wasn't screaming at us to be a certain way and then benefiting off our insecurities, maybe we could decrease hatred and eating disorders in the world. When I'm older I won't rest until beauty standards in both boys and girls get demolished so we can all for once just feel comfortable in our own skin.

Thank you for reading this, and sorry if I come off as a bit strong but I truly believe that beauty standards and the stress of having to look a certain way play a massive part in our society, and one day I hope it will be demolished so we can focus on being healthy, rather than obsessing over certain figures that may make us unhealthy trying to get them. Remember you ARE beautiful, no matter your weight or appearance. It's natural for your weight to go up and down and it's natural to not have the same body shape as the people around you. You don't need to compare yourselves to others - you ARE beautiful as YOU. Thank you.