Definition Essay: Where Are You Beautiful?
Are You Beautiful?
How do you judge if someone is beautiful the first time you see him or her? The most popular answer you may find is by physical appearance. Nowadays, the media greatly influences women’s point of view on beauty by displaying the idea that outer beauty is the only thing of all through images of good looking women in advertisements. The media teaches girls at a young age that physical attributes are all you need to get by in life by exposing them to beauty television shows like child beauty pageants. After all, the traditional dictionary definition of beauty is when a person is easy to look at. Therefore, many people forget that there is more to a person than just their looks. In my eyes, beauty means fully loving yourself and appreciating what you were born …show more content…
with because no matter how hard you try , you will never be able to change yourself completely.
Although “beauty” and “attractiveness” are synonyms, they are two completely different things. Attractiveness, as defined by Dictionary.com, is “arousing interest or engaging one’s thought.” One person may look at someone beautiful and admire that person for a short amount of time. However, someone who attracts others by their personality will always be beautiful. Therefore, attractiveness helps to create long lasting relationships, while physical beauty can only last for so long.
The media is everywhere. We are now living in a world flooded with the mass media. Therefore, when the media portrays beauty as being super skinny and extremely tall, we are pressured to think that as well. When beauty companies advertise their products to the public, the people on the commercials are flawless. To get this way, however, there are hours of Photoshopping involved to cover up any scars and imperfections. They do this to trick people, especially women, into buying their products, which claim to give them “perfect bodies.” The girls in the magazine do not even look like the girls in the magazine. Before appearing in the magazines, models are manipulated with the help of technology to fit the media’s idea of thinness and beauty. They are free of winkles, blemishes, and even pore. “Perfect” models are fake. When models look at their magazine images, they may not even recognize themselves. If society’s definition of perfect is not even real, then how can we possibly live up to their definition of being beautiful? Women spend a great deal of money on beauty products to get them closer to the media’s version of beauty. One way that women try to cover up their flaws is by using large amounts of makeup to cover their faces. A woman first applies foundation to even out her skin tone, then concealer to hide redness and any dark circles under the eye, and bronzer in the hollow of her cheeks to make her face look slimmer. She primes her eyelids to make eyeshadow last, applies eyeliner to make her eyes look bigger, and then mascara to define and lengthen her lashes. A bold color lipstick is the final touch that secures her insecurity and makes her stand out in the public. Another way that women try to look beautiful is by following extreme diets and taking pills to achieve the body that they want. Some women go as far as to undergo painful plastic surgery to change their looks permanently. In some extreme cases, women even lose their lives. For example, a housekeeper from Weston, Fla. died following a $3,600 lipo-sculpting procedure at the Alyne Medical Rejuvenation Institute in Florida. She worked seven days a week to earn money for the procedure, while it took only a few hours to lose her life. The media is so powerful that it could impact the traditional value of beauty in one culture. For instant, there was no television in Fiji, a South Pacific nation, before 1995. The “thin” idea did not affect them because women with curvy bodies and large appetites are valued and encouraged. It is a sign of prosperity, health, and fertility. Thus, to insult someone, Fijian people used the phrase “skinny legs.” After television was introduced, girls in Fiji began dieting and showing signs of anorexia. This was a response to the beautiful, tall, and skinny women on TV.
The media brainwashes young girls into believing that outer beauty is the most essential thing of all. The show Toddlers & Tiaras is a great example, because it follows families of young contestants in child beauty pageants. Contestants’ moms train and force their young girls to closely resemble their adult counterparts, including waxing eyebrows and wearing heavy makeup. Thus, these young girls are shaped to think that a beautiful outer look is the only thing needed to win and get what they want. Eight years old pageant pro, Daisey Mae, said that “Facial beauty is the most important thing in life and in pageants.” It is not normal for children to say this because children should not attach too much important to physical attributes. These children do not spend their time on age appropriate activities such as playing outdoors and reading books. Instead, they waste their childhood focused on their looks. Even though outer beauty is promoted by the media, there are people who realize that outer beauty is not everything.
People, who are able to merely overcome judging someone quickly and harshly based on their appearances, can truly get to know how great someone can be. A beautiful looking person with an ugly heart will always be truly ugly. Sooner or later, time will catch up to them and no matter how hard they try to preserve their looks, their true nature will begin to show. That person’s ugly personality will chase away the people around him or her. As a result, he or she will end up dying alone. In contrast, there could be a not so great looking person with a beautiful heart, that many people will find them to be lovely even so.
Inner beauty is someone’s personality and morality. They are features that define someone’s true beauty. They express their inner self by being caring and loving to others. Their inner beauty attracts and creates long lasting bonds with people. Inner beauty will always make someone look young. Despite being old, a person with a beautiful personality will always feel beautiful and happy because there are people who are willing to love and care for them in
return.
Besides the two traditional meanings of beauty, the perceptions about beauty has been extended more overtime. In my opinion, beauty is to respect your body, learn to appreciate and love what you are naturally created with. Someone who shaped my idea of what beauty is, is Alice Walker. In “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self,” Walker explains her journey of finding her definition of true beauty. When she was young, Alice’s perception of beauty was simple because she was born with natural cuteness. Her perception of beauty was spoiled by other people around her since they praised her by saying “Oh, isn’t she the cutest thing!” One day, her brothers accidently shot her in the eye. Her physical beauty, once brought her pride and joy, now gave her shame and disappointment. She learned and accepted her injured eye, but she did not love it. Alice’s perception of beauty has changed overtime, but she did not recognize it until her daughter saw “a world” in her eye. She came to the conclusion that true beauty was within her heart. That night, she dreamed of her other self as “whole and free” because she freed herself from her prison to appreciate and give love for her body.
When I was in middle school, I was highly self-consciousness about my body weight. Growing up, my friends often teased me by comparing me to a pig. One day, I decided to give myself a new look by cutting my eating portion. I was successful because I was able to lose five pounds. My teachers asked if I was sick because I began to have a pale-as-turkey-meat skin. I started to have cravings for food. I became so hungry that I could not help myself and ate large amounts of food uncontrollably in hope to end my hunger. I would make myself even hungrier by looking at all the foods I could not have. I asked my mother for help, so she told me to just go back to eating normally. My mother said that if I wanted my body to treat me well then I would have to do the same to it. I began to just eat healthier and exercise more; after this experience, I began to feel good in my own skin, and realized that I was beautiful in my own unique way. Beauty is really how you perceive it. You may look at yourself and feel that you have a really ugly butt, because to you it is so big. However, someone may look at you and say “She is so beautiful. Look at her butt! I wish I had that.” It shows that although you may hate your appearance, someone out there may love it. Another way to look at it would be if you look at yourself and notice that you do not have the smallest legs in the world, but you know they are beautiful anyway because you respect and love your body just the way it is. This really goes to show that beauty is just how you look at it. The most beautiful and happiest people in the world are the ones who love themselves even though they know that they are not perfect.
Beauty takes shape in many forms. Different societies have different perceptions of beauty and at a young age, children learn to adapt to them. However, as we get older, we are able to figure out what beauty is to us. To some, beauty is how they look. To others, it is their personality. Sometimes, some people are able to change the idea about beauty through their life experiences. To overcome the media’s version of beauty, you need to be comfortable with who you are because even when you are aged, your inner self is what makes you, you. You must also understand that everyone is unique in their own way, and that no one else on Earth is the same as you. At the end of the day, “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”
Works Cited
1. “Toddlers & Tiaras.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 3 Oct. 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.
2. Furlong, Maggie. “Daisey Mae’s Rant About Ugly Children And Facial Beauty.” Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. 25 April 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.
3. McLaren, Carrie. “Curious Mental Illness Around the World.” Stay Free Magazine. Stay Free!, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.
4. Guttman, Matt. “Liposuction Tragedy: Mother 's Death Highlights Dangers of Plastic Surgery.” Good Morning America. ABC News. June 21 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
How do you judge if someone is beautiful the first time you see him or her? The most popular answer you may find is by physical appearance. Nowadays, the media greatly influences women’s point of view on beauty by displaying the idea that outer beauty is the only thing of all through images of good looking women in advertisements. The media teaches girls at a young age that physical attributes are all you need to get by in life by exposing them to beauty television shows like child beauty pageants. After all, the traditional dictionary definition of beauty is when a person is easy to look at. Therefore, many people forget that there is more to a person than just their looks. In my eyes, beauty means fully loving yourself and appreciating what you were born …show more content…
with because no matter how hard you try , you will never be able to change yourself completely.
Although “beauty” and “attractiveness” are synonyms, they are two completely different things. Attractiveness, as defined by Dictionary.com, is “arousing interest or engaging one’s thought.” One person may look at someone beautiful and admire that person for a short amount of time. However, someone who attracts others by their personality will always be beautiful. Therefore, attractiveness helps to create long lasting relationships, while physical beauty can only last for so long.
The media is everywhere. We are now living in a world flooded with the mass media. Therefore, when the media portrays beauty as being super skinny and extremely tall, we are pressured to think that as well. When beauty companies advertise their products to the public, the people on the commercials are flawless. To get this way, however, there are hours of Photoshopping involved to cover up any scars and imperfections. They do this to trick people, especially women, into buying their products, which claim to give them “perfect bodies.” The girls in the magazine do not even look like the girls in the magazine. Before appearing in the magazines, models are manipulated with the help of technology to fit the media’s idea of thinness and beauty. They are free of winkles, blemishes, and even pore. “Perfect” models are fake. When models look at their magazine images, they may not even recognize themselves. If society’s definition of perfect is not even real, then how can we possibly live up to their definition of being beautiful? Women spend a great deal of money on beauty products to get them closer to the media’s version of beauty. One way that women try to cover up their flaws is by using large amounts of makeup to cover their faces. A woman first applies foundation to even out her skin tone, then concealer to hide redness and any dark circles under the eye, and bronzer in the hollow of her cheeks to make her face look slimmer. She primes her eyelids to make eyeshadow last, applies eyeliner to make her eyes look bigger, and then mascara to define and lengthen her lashes. A bold color lipstick is the final touch that secures her insecurity and makes her stand out in the public. Another way that women try to look beautiful is by following extreme diets and taking pills to achieve the body that they want. Some women go as far as to undergo painful plastic surgery to change their looks permanently. In some extreme cases, women even lose their lives. For example, a housekeeper from Weston, Fla. died following a $3,600 lipo-sculpting procedure at the Alyne Medical Rejuvenation Institute in Florida. She worked seven days a week to earn money for the procedure, while it took only a few hours to lose her life. The media is so powerful that it could impact the traditional value of beauty in one culture. For instant, there was no television in Fiji, a South Pacific nation, before 1995. The “thin” idea did not affect them because women with curvy bodies and large appetites are valued and encouraged. It is a sign of prosperity, health, and fertility. Thus, to insult someone, Fijian people used the phrase “skinny legs.” After television was introduced, girls in Fiji began dieting and showing signs of anorexia. This was a response to the beautiful, tall, and skinny women on TV.
The media brainwashes young girls into believing that outer beauty is the most essential thing of all. The show Toddlers & Tiaras is a great example, because it follows families of young contestants in child beauty pageants. Contestants’ moms train and force their young girls to closely resemble their adult counterparts, including waxing eyebrows and wearing heavy makeup. Thus, these young girls are shaped to think that a beautiful outer look is the only thing needed to win and get what they want. Eight years old pageant pro, Daisey Mae, said that “Facial beauty is the most important thing in life and in pageants.” It is not normal for children to say this because children should not attach too much important to physical attributes. These children do not spend their time on age appropriate activities such as playing outdoors and reading books. Instead, they waste their childhood focused on their looks. Even though outer beauty is promoted by the media, there are people who realize that outer beauty is not everything.
People, who are able to merely overcome judging someone quickly and harshly based on their appearances, can truly get to know how great someone can be. A beautiful looking person with an ugly heart will always be truly ugly. Sooner or later, time will catch up to them and no matter how hard they try to preserve their looks, their true nature will begin to show. That person’s ugly personality will chase away the people around him or her. As a result, he or she will end up dying alone. In contrast, there could be a not so great looking person with a beautiful heart, that many people will find them to be lovely even so.
Inner beauty is someone’s personality and morality. They are features that define someone’s true beauty. They express their inner self by being caring and loving to others. Their inner beauty attracts and creates long lasting bonds with people. Inner beauty will always make someone look young. Despite being old, a person with a beautiful personality will always feel beautiful and happy because there are people who are willing to love and care for them in
return.
Besides the two traditional meanings of beauty, the perceptions about beauty has been extended more overtime. In my opinion, beauty is to respect your body, learn to appreciate and love what you are naturally created with. Someone who shaped my idea of what beauty is, is Alice Walker. In “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self,” Walker explains her journey of finding her definition of true beauty. When she was young, Alice’s perception of beauty was simple because she was born with natural cuteness. Her perception of beauty was spoiled by other people around her since they praised her by saying “Oh, isn’t she the cutest thing!” One day, her brothers accidently shot her in the eye. Her physical beauty, once brought her pride and joy, now gave her shame and disappointment. She learned and accepted her injured eye, but she did not love it. Alice’s perception of beauty has changed overtime, but she did not recognize it until her daughter saw “a world” in her eye. She came to the conclusion that true beauty was within her heart. That night, she dreamed of her other self as “whole and free” because she freed herself from her prison to appreciate and give love for her body.
When I was in middle school, I was highly self-consciousness about my body weight. Growing up, my friends often teased me by comparing me to a pig. One day, I decided to give myself a new look by cutting my eating portion. I was successful because I was able to lose five pounds. My teachers asked if I was sick because I began to have a pale-as-turkey-meat skin. I started to have cravings for food. I became so hungry that I could not help myself and ate large amounts of food uncontrollably in hope to end my hunger. I would make myself even hungrier by looking at all the foods I could not have. I asked my mother for help, so she told me to just go back to eating normally. My mother said that if I wanted my body to treat me well then I would have to do the same to it. I began to just eat healthier and exercise more; after this experience, I began to feel good in my own skin, and realized that I was beautiful in my own unique way. Beauty is really how you perceive it. You may look at yourself and feel that you have a really ugly butt, because to you it is so big. However, someone may look at you and say “She is so beautiful. Look at her butt! I wish I had that.” It shows that although you may hate your appearance, someone out there may love it. Another way to look at it would be if you look at yourself and notice that you do not have the smallest legs in the world, but you know they are beautiful anyway because you respect and love your body just the way it is. This really goes to show that beauty is just how you look at it. The most beautiful and happiest people in the world are the ones who love themselves even though they know that they are not perfect.
Beauty takes shape in many forms. Different societies have different perceptions of beauty and at a young age, children learn to adapt to them. However, as we get older, we are able to figure out what beauty is to us. To some, beauty is how they look. To others, it is their personality. Sometimes, some people are able to change the idea about beauty through their life experiences. To overcome the media’s version of beauty, you need to be comfortable with who you are because even when you are aged, your inner self is what makes you, you. You must also understand that everyone is unique in their own way, and that no one else on Earth is the same as you. At the end of the day, “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”
Works Cited
1. “Toddlers & Tiaras.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 3 Oct. 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.
2. Furlong, Maggie. “Daisey Mae’s Rant About Ugly Children And Facial Beauty.” Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. 25 April 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.
3. McLaren, Carrie. “Curious Mental Illness Around the World.” Stay Free Magazine. Stay Free!, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.
4. Guttman, Matt. “Liposuction Tragedy: Mother 's Death Highlights Dangers of Plastic Surgery.” Good Morning America. ABC News. June 21 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.