The Beauty Standards for Women Lead to Mental Health Problems

  By: Tiffany Margolis

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   Beauty standards today are highly unrealistic and can create stress for women to conform to particular ideals. These unrealistic beauty standards are shown to people on a daily basis through magazines and social media, where people can use filters to alter their appearance, leading others to believe that’s how they actually look. They cause a lot of pressure, especially on young females, to look a certain way or to conform to how their bodies should look. These standards can cause a lot of stress, which can affect mental health. This leads to eating disorders, low self-esteem, negative body image, depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia. These pressures are especially placed on young females because they are socialized to value their appearance, and they tend to view their bodies externally, while men usually view their bodies internally. Women are usually more pressured in society to try to look good because it has been a social norm for women to try to look their best to please others. In contrast, men have never really cared about beauty, so that has never been a social norm for them. While men still want to look decent, they have never really cared about their appearance beyond some maintenance, like getting their hair cut. This unrealistic beauty standard affects women in their daily lives. Some examples of this are when you have a crush on someone, and you start to nitpick every single thing about yourself to try to make that person like you. You might start wearing more or less makeup, dressing up more, changing your hair, and trying to seem cooler while hiding your passions and hobbies because you feel like they would be uninterested if they knew you liked something like that. In this day and age, there isn’t really a way to resolve the beauty standard because it has been ingrained in us that women should try to look a certain way or act a certain way. Women’s beauty standards are more unrealistic to achieve, which causes a lot of pressure on them to try to be something they aren’t just to fit in.