Challenging American ideal beauty

It is extremely difficult to feel beautiful these days. In this media-driven society, we are constantly confronted by an almost unattainable ideal of beauty. One of the most prominent markers of beauty in this country is a person's weight (or lack thereof), and there is no denying that to be thin in America is to be beautiful.

In the real world, however, we're not always as thin as Nicole Ritchie. Not everyone can afford a personal trainer, or take time away from work and school to work out, or even eat three healthy meals every day. Real people (the ones you don't see in advertisements, in magazines, or on TV) come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and every day it is becoming increasingly difficult to be comfortable in your own skin.

Ever watch daytime television? The ads and infomercials for diet products can become overwhelming. If you want to watch anything on TV during the day, be prepared for the TV to tell you you're fat at least three times an hour. Any peek at a print ad for an outlet store will feature thin and toned men and women who look nothing like the people who actually shop in those stores. And of course, there's the celebrity tabloid, the #1 thing that I encounter that makes me feel the most inadequate and unattractive.

These tabloids don't just display thin celebrities, they praise them. If a perfectly healthy-looking actress loses 10 pounds, it's a front page story. If the magazines happen to catch sight of a celebrity with cellulite or a pudgy tummy (i.e. things that make them look like normal human beings), that celebrity is ridiculed for months and then the pictures are stored in some box labeled "after" photos, because the celebrity always manages to lose the weight and is immediately gratified for doing so.

It is for these reasons and many more that I find feeling beautiful to not just be difficult, but nearly impossible. How can anyone who isn't thin feel completely satisfied with their appearance in a country that worships thin people?

I've been trying this new thing lately. Instead of constantly feeling like I need to lose weight or change my appearance in some way, I'm trying to accept the way I look right now and learn to really appreciate it. I must say, it is not easy. One day I'll feel confident, and then I'll see some billboard for H&M and I'm back to feeling inadequate. The one thing I can't help but think is that it's not fair. No one should ever have to feel like they're not good enough because they don't look a certain way.

Despite the way things are right now, I have faith that it won't always be this way. Being thin wasn't always the ideal of beauty; take a look at any painting of women from long ago and you'll see this. However, I think that in order for any change to occur, everyone has to challenge this ideal image of beauty and learn to dismiss it. If we all learn how to believe in the beauty within us, we can just get rid of the ideal image of beauty altogether.