"Beautys Standards"
Submitted by freefortermpapers on 06/24/2008 03:00 PM
- Category: Book Reports
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"Beautys Standards"
"Beauty standards are perceived according to the cultural norms that people are accustomed to and this has a great influence on how the attractiveness of a person is perceived." (Steven Malik Shelton) Long hair? A tan? Blue eyes? Are these beauties "ideal" or are there as many definitions of beauty as there are people on earth? In today's society many people have many perceptions of beauty. Some people view it as curvatious, others view it as petit. Beauty is perceived everywhere as something different. These are all based on the different standards that a country gives itself.
The standards of beauty from the fashion and pageant industries, as well
Media invalidate women's natural beauty and disrespect the diversity inherent in women of all shapes, colors and ages. The weight standard these "beauties" set is getting increasingly harder to attain. According to a study done by the American Medical Association, "contestants in the 1920s Miss America pageants had a Body Mass Index within the range that is now considered normal." However, this has declined over the years and more winners have bodies that the World Health Organization considers malnourished. Some winners have even been well below this level. "Why is our cultural standard of beauty that of starvation? When millions of people do not have enough to eat, why are we glorifying hunger?" (Andrea Falkenhagen, the Daily Cardinal) To make women who do not fit this beauty ideal feel even worse, the newest spin on thinness is that it is really just "fitness." The Miss America Pageant covers up its sexualized judging of women's bodies under the guise of "lifestyle and fitness in a swimsuit."
Girls grow up idolizing these images of beauty. Is it any wonder that recent studies by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that as many as 50 to 75 percent of adolescent girls are dissatisfied with their weight and body image.
Even more upsetting is that through increasing...
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