Beauty, a trait that many possess. But only a few know how to embrace it. It seems like beauty is the biggest feature that everyone judges. Many believe that just because someone is thin, they are automatically considered beautiful. Different from someone who is fat, they are believed to be ugly or untidy because they don’t “take care” of themselves. Average beauty is not represented in the world today. You don’t see people with acne or a spare tire grazing a billboard or even on your television unless it’s for a product to eradicate those “problems”. 

All around the world, beauty is only crafted to be the image of a thin, porcelain skinned person. However, the nation needs to stop thinking so narrow mindedly, and expand their perception of beauty. We need to morph the media into an outlet where people of all shapes, colors, and sizes are equally represented as someone who is thin. We need to make average the new captivating image of beauty.

Society sets a high bar for beauty which the average person cannot meet.  The expectation of having a well built body or good looking skin is not something they can accomplish.  Author of article, “Society’s Standards Of Beauty Will Get Old, But Being Comfortable With Yourself Never Will.” Temimah Zucker states that  “We live in a society of billboards and ads, Photoshop, and Botox. We are trained to believe that size two is perfect, while most healthy women in America fit into a size 12” (“Society’s”). Constantly having to see a billboard of someone who is beautiful is overwhelming. It makes us want to change something about ourselves. But even the person who modeled for said billboard’s image was altered to fit the standards of “perfection”.  Zucker put her personal perspective of the matter of beauty by saying that she “did not want a tombstone that read ‘Here lies Temimah, she was anorexic and weighed x pounds.’ Rather I realized that I wanted to be remembered for my contributions to society and for my character — not for my appearance or how many calories I ate”  (“Society’s”). This is a perfect example as to why we shouldn’t push ourselves to lower our standards to please the shallow mind of the general public. Author of the NYTimes book “Survival of the Prettiest”, Nancy Etcoff wrote, “Our body responds to it viscerally and our names for beauty are synonymous with physical cataclysms and bodily obliteration—breathtaking, femme fatale, knockout, drop-dead gorgeous, bombshell, stunner, and ravishing. We experience beauty not as rational contemplation but as a response to physical urgency” (“Survival”). Humans fish for these alluring compliments. But notice that all these comments are just for the body and not the face. The body is what makes the person beautiful not the face. Who cares about the face when the body is everything? The sad part is, we still make judgements like these today.  But of course, Standards only exist because people are still insecure of themselves.

Because of these high societal expectations, we (average looking) people often have low self-esteem when it comes to our beauty. I conducted a brief survey, asking one-hundred of my fellow peers to answer them honestly. The questions asked were, “Do you consider yourself to be beautiful? “, “Do you think celebrities are responsible for why beauty standards are so high?”, and “Would you say you have high self esteem with your beauty or not?”. When asked if they considered themselves beautiful, 65% of the students said that they did not. And when asked if they had high self-esteem nearly 80% of them admittedly said no (Beauty Survey). That’s a high amount of people who don’t feel comfortable with themselves. If they don’t feel comfortable with themselves, they’re just allowing the media and other superficial people to keep pressuring them into believing they need to look a certain way in order to get any form of attention. It’s like Nancy Etcoff said in her book, “The human image has been subjected to all manner of manipulation in an attempt to create an ideal that does not seem to have a human incarnation” (“Survival”). There is literally no such thing as the perfect image. The illusion of beauty is just that, an illusion and the sooner people realize that, the sooner everyone can become confident in their own skin.

The worst part about people not embracing their skin, is that they sometimes will go to the extremes in order to meet society’s twisted standards. Sometimes to achieve beauty people will engage in extreme diets and if that fails they will go as far as getting plastic surgery. There are a number of extreme diets, one being the tapeworm diet. A diet where “People would swallow tapeworms, which are parasites that stick to your intestines and absorb nutrients, to cause weight loss” (“5 Ways”). People have no limits to achieve what they wanna look like. And as far as plastic surgery goes, most women look up to the Kardashians, one of the most influential families to have almost flawless cosmetic surgery. And why do women look up to these stars? Because they are also considered one of the most beautiful people in our time. The sooner our insecurities are diminished the sooner we can get average representation out there.

Furthermore, this issue doesn’t just affect women, but also men. In the March 18,2015 Buzzfeed video “Men’s Standards Of Beauty Around The World”, stated that “studies have shown that american men face media pressure to have the perfect, muscular body” (“Men’s”). Just like women, men also face the pressure of the media. And also have to live up to society’s ethics. The video also stated that, “The number of men’s beauty products increased more than 70% worldwide between 2012 and 2014”  (“Men’s”). Beauty products have now spread to the men’s market from facial cleansers to “male make-up”. Why? Because the fashion industry has now persuaded the male population to believe that they need these products to even receive a second glance. Not only that but the video also provided an example of popular celebrity influences upon males:“Professional athletes like David Beckham are considered male beauty idols” (“Men’s”). With celebrities like David Beckham, it’s no wonder males feel like they need to be on top of the beauty chain. Beckham may be retired but he’s still seen in ads for H&M and for a man his age, he still looks amazing. I myself as a male, have gone through something like this. I wanted to look like someone from a magazine, I wanted a thin body and have clear skin. I wanted to have the image that society wanted me to have. But once I achieved having a thinner body and a nice face, I realized that I wasn’t comfortable with the new me, and felt much more at peace with what I used to look like. After that revelation, I stopped caring about what I or anyone looked like because it didn’t matter by thinking more openly I learned that true beauty comes in the inside. The truth is, even men are faced by the struggles of what is beauty. And just like women, they too don’t meet society’s narrow expectations.

Although most people would argue that average people are not meant to be on magazines, this is where people are heavily mistaken: there are models out there making a huge change to the fashion industry and changing the perspective of beauty. Such models include Chantelle Young A.K.A Winnie Harlow, and Tess Holliday. Chantelle may not be average but she made a change in the beauty industry as the first model with vitiligo ( a skin disease that causes the loss of skin color) to compete on “ America’s Next Top Model”. She may not have won but she continues to impact the world by appearing in many magazines and ads you may have even seen her in the recent Sprite commercial. Chantelle is a prime example of beauty coming in all colors and skin not being perfect. And Tess Holliday is a plus sized model that has changed the industry by being the first model to wear a size 22. Someone who shows the world that beauty comes in all sizes. Besides these models, there is also a model that has taken the world by storm, by being the first model with down syndrome. Her name is, Madeline Stuart. Madeline aspired to be a model, and thanks to her mother, she put Madeline’s name out there. According to Madeline”s website, “So many people said she was an inspiration. She gave people hope that their children living with Down syndrome would achieve anything they set their mind to” (“Madeline’s”). Madeline is doing her contribution to keep changing the norms of beauty. We see models changing these standards, but what about celebrities? Do they change the image of beauty? Or do they decide not to conform? An article in USA Today caught my eye, this article was about the Scandal star Kerry Washington and how she refuses to conform to Hollywood’s standards of beauty. The article states that “But Washington, who is now counted among Tinseltown's coveted cadre of A-list stars, reveals that she initially lost out on a lot of roles because of her refusal to conform to Hollywood's beauty standards” (“Kerry”). The media says that average people can’t be on a magazine, when even this A-list star couldn’t land a role because she wasn't considered beautiful enough. Then in this is just how corrupt the beauty really industry is. The truth of the matter is, even though not many average people are represented, there are still social outcast that are out there who represent true beauty.

Some people may say, Plus sized models are enough change in the beauty industry. However, they are mistaken because even some plus sized models aren’t really plus sized, they are thick or tall women who are only defined by what size their clothing is. Also there are almost no plus sized males out there either. There are models out there in the industry who are “plus sized” but even they themselves don’t identify as being plus. In a Plus Model Magazine article, model Iskra Lawrence stated that “People will say to me ‘How are you plus-sized, you have a flat stomach?!’ because there’s such an assumption about what the term means” (“2015”). Not only that but she mentioned that “a lot of plus-size models are super tall too—when you’re a size 14 and 6’2?, you’re actually quite slender! That’s why looking only at numbers is just terrible.” (“2015”). These are direct quotes from a model who according to the modeling industry is plus sized. But even she doesn’t consider herself plus sized, and infact finds it disrespectful to real plus sized women, she believes that the modeling industry is flawed and that they need to reconsider their description of plus sized. Despite having plus sized models, most are only female. Where are the males? Where are the big guys? Because the only plus sized male model I could find was Zach Miko. And according to an article from The Guardian, here’s why Zach is the only male model out there, “Despite the demand, there are currently no plus-size male models on the books of a major agency in the UK. In Germany, there are three agencies dedicated to plus-size male models, but their remit rarely stretches outside Germany (Miko hails from Connecticut).In menswear, plus-size refers to XL and up (higher than a 42in chest), but can stretch to anyone very tall and well built. For reference, the Guardian uses male models with a 32in waist” (“Plus”). Zach is the only plus size male model in the U.S and parts of the U.K. But even then, he isn’t well known and not very well represented. Therefore bigger men aren’t equally represented in the fashion industry much like women. Here’s the truth, what the fashion industry considers plus sized, is merely just curvy or thick women not really anyone above a size 16. And not to mention that they completely left out any representation for the heavier set males it’s no wonder people have body issues and self doubt about themselves.

Advertisers and pop culture media create the image of what they believe is beauty and we are expected to believe that is perfection. But the world needs to know that nobody is perfect and that those imperfections are beauty. There are many insecure people across the nation. Although some aren’t willing to admit it. There needs to be a change that will break this selfless barrier between who is considered beautiful. We need to have more ad campaigns with regular people. And we also need more ad campaigns that promote body/beauty positivity. We need to expand the warped perspective of beauty. If we all learn how to accept one another by what is on the inside rather than the outside, then maybe then we could have regular people on a billboard  or in a magazine who is selling clothing or posing for a couture magazine instead of just having regular people posing as the before picture of acne or bad hair. Only then can everyone truly embrace what they were born with, there will be no more need for being self conscience, they will be… Beautiful.