Society has created a disease, and it is finally about time we end it. For centuries, society has come up with a preferred look for everyone. This is now referred to as the “beauty standard”. The standard has changed greatly over the years but can still have the same effect on people of all ages. More commonly seen, though, is teenagers. Many teenagers have been influenced in positive and negative ways by the made-up beauty standard. Maybe even your friend, child, or even adult figure has been affected by this, sometimes in dangerous ways. But in order to care for society’s mental and physical health, it is crucial that society, as a whole, begins openly talking about the wrongdoings of the beauty standard and starts to try and change their viewpoints on it. 

The made-up beauty standard has been found to strongly negatively affect people’s mental health. Body image issues can be formed from a beauty standard, which can then lead to mental health issues. As states by Professor Carolyn Mair, a charter of the British Psychological Education, “Although body image concerns are not a mental health condition in themselves, they can be a risk factor for mental health problems such as poorer quality of life, psychological distress, and unhealthy behaviors including eating disorders.” Professor Mair, as seen above, supports the idea of ending the “beauty standard”. She sees and learns about the negative effects it can have on someone’s mental health. She has found that the standard can further push people into deeper mental health issues and can lead to things as severe as eating disorders. These are all things in someone’s mental capacity, therefore, the beauty standard can put a toll on someone’s mental health just because that person wants to “fit in” so badly.  So, if you know someone affected by mental health, all this standard can do is make it worse. A policy officer at Rethink Mental Illness named Hannah Lewis also believes that the beauty standard has a large effect on someone’s mental health: “And poor body image can further undermine the wellbeing of people who already have a mental illness. Some medications cause weight gain. ‘That’s really important to a person’s body image’ she says.” Lewis has shown that she too agrees that the beauty standard has negatively affected society’s mental health. She states that poor body image, due to the beauty-standard, can make people’s mental health even worse due to the medication. She states that some people refuse to take it solely because it might cause them to gain slightly more weight. Or in other words, change how they look to look even more different than what the standard “wants”. Since people are so focused on looking and staying in the beauty standard, they would sacrifice their own mental health by not taking the medication made to help them. Thus leading to their mental health possibly becoming even worse. Therefore showing how badly some people want to sit directly into the standard, even if they already are perfect how they are. This shows that the beauty standard has been able to negatively affect people’s mental health in many different ways. 

The beauty standard has also been able to negatively affect people’s physical health as well. Tom Quinn, a director of external affairs at eating disorder charity beat, claims “People who are dissatisfied with their body image are at higher risk of developing an eating disorder.” The beauty standard consists of looks, and body image is apart of that. People become so aware of their body image that they may tend to do things that become more and more dangerous for their physical health. If someone notices that their body is not what they want, they might try to overwork themselves to try and burn it all off, this can be very dangerous. Or they could try a different, more dangerous approach, and develop an eating disorder. The Eating Recovery Center even mentions that “there are many health risks that can possibly follow eating disorders, these can include organ damage, development delays, and death”. An eating disorder is when someone overeats or undereats. When someone undereats, they strip themselves of nutrients they need to survive and function. People will do this just because they want to fit into the standard. This all happens because they are unhappy with their body image and want to change it. After recovering from an eating disorder, you have the possibility to gain other health problems as the Eating Recovery Center stated above. So, many people make large sacrifices just to try and fit into the standard, most of the time negatively affecting their physical health. But, some people claim that the beauty standard doesn’t even affect anyone, or it only affects teenagers and is seen as a “phase”. However, that is not true. A YouGov poll done had results stating that “57% of 18-24-year-olds surveyed admit to having felt anxious about their body image. Compared to 30% of 45-54-year-olds and 20% of people over 55.” This poll shows that the standard affects everyone, and is not just a “phase” that occurs in teenagers. This also proves that because of the beauty standard created, people have begun to care more about what they look like and have even felt anxious about their body image at all ages. Therefore, the beauty standard is not just a teenage phase, but in fact something that affects people of all ages. 

The beauty standard has done much damage to society’s physical and mental health. Therefore the made-up beauty standard must be ended by society to care for our physical and mental health. The beauty standard has been a thing for decades and has still affected people during all times at all ages. The standard has been shown to bring people to many different outcomes in life, some dangerous. This standard has done nothing but hurt people physically and mentally. So, it is time we, as a society, become the vaccine for this disease and end it altogether. It is time society begins to talk openly about this problem and work together to change it. Society should start to focus more on what makes them happy to do, and not what they think will make them fit into the standard the most. Finally, society needs to stop thinking about and judging everyone else and become less critical. You should focus more on what you may like about how other people look and maybe even what you like about yourself. We must bring this standard to an end, for we blame society for this, but we are society.