Unrealistic Body Images

With everyone being connected today through social media, have you ever taken a step back and looked at just how
much it is impacting adolescents and their own view of their body image?
The beauty trend started with beauty pageants and that is just where we are starting. There have always been models
and with this image of what is beautiful came the downfall of our own body images. When Ann Simonton came out to
protest these unrealistic expectations of beauty in 1981 she gave everyone a voice. She showed the ugly side of the
modeling and pageant industry between the name calling and airbrushing images to finally calling them out for the
eating disorders created by the industry.
The beauty standard shifted and today everyone is online and dependent on how many likes, or friends a person has.
Because of this there are so many teens out there who have undergone minor cosmetic procedures and some even
more major. This is the image we put out there as acceptable.

The images I have included are of myself. The easiest

way I can compare to this topic on an understandable
level is by using my own experience. The first image is
of me in the third grade, you can see I had the basic
greasy looking hair, overalls, crooked teeth, but I was
happy. The following image is of me my junior year, I
was a bit cleaner image wise, but I lost the innocence
and smile of truly being happy with who I was. In the
third photo I was the happiest I can say I have ever
been. It was the same day I gave birth to my first daugh-
ter. I am not thin, I am not even sure if at this point I
had showered, but it didn’t matter because I had just
given birth to the most precious thing in the world. The
bottom left image was about 3 years ago. I had went
through a phase and dyed my hair, but at this point I
was in mom mode. I had already given birth to two
daughters, was working all the time and going to school.
The final picture was taken last summer. What I seen
when I looked at this image was the weight I had gained
throughout the years, my face is fuller, I have a double
chin, but in my daughters eyes, this was the most beau-
tiful photo. Social media has taken us all from that care-
less happy child in the first photo to the self-conscience
woman in the final photo. Sometimes it takes stepping
away from what is normal and looking at where you
started and where you ended up. Everyone is beautiful
sometimes it just takes time to open your eyes and see
it.