8 Beauty Lies Told by the Media ...

This is probably one of the most prevalent and most damaging lie that the media has ever told. To be beautiful is to be thin, and to be thin is to be beautiful. There are many men and women who diet and exercise themselves to exhaustion… all in the name of becoming thin. Our culture is a culture of thinness. And even though we are becoming more accepting of curvy women, I think it will be a long time before we completely eradicate the mentality that thin is beautiful.

Our society believes that if you are tall, you are beautiful. Why must designers always make clothes that require tall women to model? Why do we hear or read comments like this – “At 5’2, this latina spitfire is still melting hearts.” (About Selma Hayek from an entertainment site) Do you have to be tall to impress and to be loved by people?

Majority of the women we see on magazines, movies, and television possess shapely and perky breasts. It’s as if they are exempt from gravity, aging, and natural sagging. Because we see these women all the time, we are led to believe that this is how our breasts should look: shapely and perky. If they don’t look that way, they are ugly and undesirable.

Despite the presence of colored women in various forms of media, white or Caucasian women are a more common site. It is undeniable that Caucasian features – blond hair, blue eyes – is still considered ideal. I even read somewhere that a lot of Latina or African-American girls desire to achieve that “white beauty” but almost no Caucasian girls would want to have that “black beauty”.

If you have any hair on any part of your body other than your head, then you need to get rid of it. Many procedures have been developed to remove body hair – shaving, waxing, laser, etc. – and women are urged to make use of them. Only when you don’t have hair on your body will you be considered flawless and beautiful.

Aging is big no-no in our society even if it is the most natural process humans go through. To maintain your beauty, you must slow or halt aging. They have developed creams and cosmetic surgeries to help you do this.

Spots and lines on the skin are considered imperfections. It doesn’t matter if you are a person with countless achievements and experience under your belt. You need to have clear, spotless, and unlined skin or else you are not beautiful.

It is not enough for media to tell us all these lies. Companies have to butt in and tell us that we need their products to be beautiful. We need their push up bras; our bodies need to be sculpted by their body shapers; we need to cover our blemishes with concealer; our lips need to be redder; we need to have a perpetual blush on our cheeks; and somehow it never ends.

No one has been given the right to judge what is truly beautiful. Do not willingly eat up the lies that media and businesses feed you. It’s business to most of them and they have no regard for how they affect you and your confidence in yourself. Learn to question anything that does not sit right with you. Learn to ignore what makes you feel less beautiful than what you truly believe yourself to be. Look inside yourself instead of outside so you will see what really matters to you.

Top Photo Credit: danièle.martinie