Reponse

Have you ever waken up one morning and looked in the mirror and realized you weren’t happy with how you looked? I think a lot of people do this. Self- image has become a big deal in this world and almost everybody thinks about it every day of their lives. Most women put make-up on and do their hair every day. Some men go to the gym and shave and even do their hair every day. I don’t think anything is wrong with this because I personally do it too. I still remember the day my older sisters taught me how to do my make-up and all the awful hairstyles I use to wear. They taught me what the new trends were and all I needed to know about fashion at the time.  But I don’t think our lives should revolve around how you look and how you think others look at you.

The world is all about looks. We have models, advertisements, fashion, and shows. I believe all of these things are fun but when is enough, enough? Is it when the sixteen year old commits suicide from being made fun of or is it when girls stop eating to get a job? Society cares too much, in my opinion. Some little girls’ dreams are to become models or actresses and be beautiful but they don’t know how cruel the reality of it can be. They don’t know that they will have to be a certain height and weight and look a certain way before they are even considered for the job.

I believe people are putting their image before more important things in life. They go tanning and get their hair and nails done, even when they can’t afford it. My best friend use to work at a salon and had a customer that was paying and talking about her food stamps she just started getting. People are spending their money on how they look rather than getting their kids what they need or even food on the table. The women who starve their selves or don’t eat healthy just to look slim and fit, risk their health to look better. Girls and even boys have died from anorexia or bulimia just to try to live up to the standards of looking good. Along with eating habits are workout habits, it is healthy to exercise but people also can take this to the extremes. They push their bodies too hard and take all kinds of performance enhancers that can be unhealthy for the body. I think as the years go on this becomes more and more popular because it starts trends and other want to follow those trends. Along with all of this comes the stress of having to keep up with it all. Stress can also put your health at risk, and is it all really worth it? Risking your health to look better for society?

People have taken this image and created stereotypes out of it making others think this is how things have to be done. The cruelness of it is that it will probably never stop. The more time that goes by the move advancements are being made. Such as new drugs, new technology to help improve looks, new beauty supplies, new everything. Researchers are busy trying to make a cream that makes the wrinkles in your face be less visible while people are dying from diseases that doesn’t have a treatment yet because other researchers haven’t figured it out. The influence on media also has a very strong effect. They constantly talk about the celebrities and how they look and what they are doing. Some celebrities make the cover of a magazine just because they gained twenty pounds, when a new war in on the verge of breaking out. The magazines push politics and other important news that could affect your life to the side to talk about how much weight someone gained or lost or what color their hair is, but who gets to say which is more important?

Not everyone follows these footsteps. Not everyone acts like this, but what is the limit? What makes those of us who like the materialistic things different than the ones who don’t like the materialistic things in life? Does it make them better people? Opinions are just that; opinions. So who gets to say what is right and what is wrong when opinions are opposite of facts? I believe some people put aside their actual morals and values just to look good in the eyes of society. A lot of us don’t want people to hate us or think bad about us. But with that being said, it also depends on who knows us, for example the president of the United of America has a lot more people watching and judging him rather than me who is just an average college student knowing about a fraction of the people he knows. Is it about who we are or who we know or is it about what we want people to know us as?

Lastly, we have a very limited time to actually live our lives, and some people don’t make the most of it. They spend hours at the gym and the salons and even waste their time bullying others who don’t look “good”. I believe this time could be spent with family or the ones they love doing things they love. Personal appearance could be something they love, but I sometimes think that some people but it before other things in life and make it all about how they look. Spending thousands of dollars on outfits that they may only wear a few times, when that money could be spent on something much more important, like charity or even just helping others in any way, or just even food on the table. Self image has turned into a whole different thing in this time period, and is it healthy or not in any aspect?