A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.
Coco Chanel
We all grow up watching movies and tv series and believe that this is what life will be like. The things portrayed are all valid and inspire us in a good or a wrong way. It draws a picture of an ideal daughter, partner, daughter-in-law and whatnot, and by watching all this, maybe our elders expect us to behave the same way.
If we talk about Indian television shows, we can see that everyone in the family is sitting in sarees and suits, with makeup and heavy jewellery, and are looking pretty 24*7. They are also shown engaged in housework, listening to all the tantrums and are expected to stay silent.
Girls are expected to have an hourglass figure, whether it’s an advertisement, a movie, or a shopping website. The ideal body size for a woman is pre-decided by society.
Photo Editing and Filters
This can mislead a lot of girls to start practising unhealthy food habits, starving themselves and hurting themselves as well. And in today’s age which platform is misleading and raising a question about beauty between girls? It’s the social media and the trends we all tend to follow.
Content creators, beauty vloggers, and makeup artists convince us to be the best version of ourselves by applying hundreds of products before stepping out. Jill M. Emanuele, PhD, the senior director of the Mood Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute, says that Photoshop and filters can also lead to negative body image issues. The most affected age group by this is the adolescents who consume this content daily.
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Even if we start consuming good content on social media, advertisements of products like “Fair and Lovely” and “Ponds” who portray a girl with a dark skin tone to be less confident and vulnerable at important stages of her life and suddenly her confidence-boosting up after looking a shade lighter is just making every girl question her skin tone and her confidence.
Researchers conclude that the time spent on social media is directly related to the frequent body and weight comparisons and more negative feelings about one’s body.
“Plus-size” Models
Why are plus size models named “plus-size” and not just models?
Why does it become necessary to differentiate them from the general models?
We need mannequins who are dressed up in comfortable clothes and clothes which are actually sold the most, the average size, not lean not plus size but something in between as it helps in boosting confidence of the girls going out for shopping.
As a society, we need to educate the coming generation that every skin tone, every hair type is normal and is accepted in the world we are living in. We should not differentiate between who is beautiful and who is not based on someone’s look and body type; it should always be about how the person is inside.
We need to change because the media is growing rapidly day by day, and we cannot let people suffer anxiety, depression or any mental problem because of this. It should always be about what makes you comfortable.
How to deal with this?
Filter Your Content: Follow pages and influencers you like. If you like seeing their content then it should not be an issue but if their content makes you conscious then it’s not good for your mental health. Pay attention to what makes you happy.
Take a Break: Take a break from scrolling your social media feed day and night and give rest to your mind as it needs to relax from all the content you might have consumed the whole day.
Positive Attitude: Follow pages which help you look at life in a positive manner. It can be anything related to fitness, fashion, comedy, inspirational quotes, etc., anything which makes you and your day happy.
