Beauty Pressures & Self-Love

Photo Credit: Brig Newspaper

Everywhere we look, there's pressure to conform. Whether it is feeling the pressure to buy and wear the latest "it" item or achieve the new "perfect" makeup look, social pressures are what practically makeup today’s society. With the influence of social media, the need to keep up with the latest fashion and beauty trends is more intense now than ever, especially among college students. Between social media, magazines, peers, celebrities, etc., there are so many to feel bombarded or compelled by the latest trends. The constant influx of fashion and beauty trends can create a sense of inadequacy, not only feeling pressured to keep up with the latest trends but also questioning what style and beauty even is. Many images we see on social media are unrealistic portrayals of beauty and this has caused a lot of harm to college students trying to navigate their sense of self-confidence and self-worth. 

As a girl from Scottsdale, Arizona, moving across the country to Syracuse, New York for school, was more than just a culture shock. I can truly say I am not the same person I was four years ago. I have learned more about myself and my self-worth during this time than in any other period of my life. One of the important and impactful concepts I have learned and something I take everywhere with me, is learning to love myself for me, not for the person I want people to perceive me as. The first step to self-love is learning more about why we even perceive beauty the way we do. One important concept to mention is hegemonic norms.

Hegemony is a noun that can be defined as “leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others” (Oxford Languages). In today’s society, some examples of hegemonic norms that are associated with women include having a BBL (Brazilian butt lift), a small waist, a flat stomach, perfect hair, perfect skin, a skinny figure, and large breasts.   Whether we like it or not, hegemonic norms are everywhere and are constantly changing based on the influence the dominant, higher-class individuals have over society as a whole. Some of these people who manipulate the culture within that society include celebrities, influencers, politicians and the ruling class. The media we all consume greatly controls the current hegemonic norms and ways we perceive the ‘perfect look’.

As a small woman with a flat chest, untamable curly hair, and extremely freckled skin, I have struggled to confine myself to these social norms for most of my life. While I have always had a petite and slim figure, I have still struggled greatly with my physical appearance and body image over the years, feeling like I wasn’t ‘skinny’ enough. Unfortunately, having a model-like skinny figure is one of the most impactful hegemonic norms on young girls in today’s society worldwide, and with the lack of nutritional education and body image support integrated into school systems, today, many young girls and boys battle some type of eating disorder whether it is internal, mental, or physical. The scary truth is that “35-57% of adolescent girls engage in crash dieting, fasting, self-induced vomiting, diet pills, or laxatives. In a college campus survey, 91% of the women admitted to controlling their weight through dieting (ANAD).” 

So many women struggle with the way they look in the mirror or the numbers that are displayed on a scale and most of the struggles are direct results of the influence the media has on our society. I have personally been directly affected by this ‘skinny girl stigma,’ confined by hegemonic norms and struggling with eating disorders. While I have never been considered “overweight,” there have been points in my life where I have felt like the heaviest person alive on the inside and outside. As a very athletic child and extremely picky eater, I never struggled with weight gain, until I reached my junior year of high school and quit cheerleading I noticed a significant difference in my appearance. When I was a young girl, I could eat whatever the hell I wanted to and somehow did not gain a pound, well this is at least what I have told myself for years but the truth is, maybe I did gain excess weight from time to time, I just did not care or notice. 

During my junior year when I began to notice my weight gain, I did not understand why I was gaining weight and was not educated enough to know how to handle it. Because I no longer fit into Scottsdale, Arizona’s definition of beauty, I felt the only option was starvation and diet culture. I remember comparing myself to influencers and models such as Alexia Ren, who has not only struggled with eating disorders but has received plastic surgery such as rib removal and breast implants, to fit the American skinny girl look.  I downloaded an app called Lose It which asks the user to enter the amount of weight they would like to lose, and the app tells them the suggested amount of calories they should eat per day. I didn't even know what a calorie was until that day. I had never looked at a nutritional label up until that point and because of my lack of education, I thought the lower the numbers, the better. Calorie counting became a fun game for me. I would challenge myself to eat as few calories as possible and become as skinny as I possibly could. Not only was I eating less than 500 calories a day, but I usually worked out twice a day and drank as many Red Bulls as possible to properly function. 

In addition to calorie counting, I would often binge eat an entire large pizza to myself and then not eat for a full week to follow in hopes that would reverse the calories in the pizza. I ruined family vacations because of the tears I cried from eating a beignet in New Orleans, Louisiana, or the mac n cheese I ate on Thanksgiving day. I got so lost in the calorie game that I began to lose myself as a whole. My extreme anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder lasted about seven months. I will never forget the day I realized I was being consumed by this horrible eating cycle that felt impossible to escape for so long. It was January 4, 2019, just a few days after squeezing myself into a dress two sizes too small for New Year's Eve. I was at home sick with a double ear infection, a sinus infection, and bronchitis. I had not felt that sick in so long and all I wanted to eat was Annie’s star tomato soup, but my anorexia brain told me I could not eat it no matter how much I wanted it. I was 88 pounds at 5’2 and I still thought that I was fat. 

Food, something that used to be my best friend, happy place, and safe place, became my enemy and worst nightmare in a matter of days. I was so focused on comparing myself to others and maintaining a skinny figure, that I didn't even know who I was anymore. Through the consumption of the toxic diet culture in social media, I lost myself completely and only cared about one thing, the way my figure looked in the mirror. Looking back now, I believe I let my eating disorder consume me because it was one of the only things I could control in my life during that time. Instead of dealing with the actual stressors in my life head-on, I focused all of my attention solely on my appearance and the way I looked in that stupid mirror. 

After getting the help I needed, I viewed myself in a whole new light. I learned my body is beautiful no matter what and no one could tell me otherwise. A quote I like to live by is “every body is a good body.” While I have recovered from the worst of it, eating disorders never fully go away so I am still learning ways to cope with them and fight against them. Every time I catch myself beginning to relapse, I try and tell myself “every body is a good body.” I hope if there is anything taken away from this article, it is that every body in this world is perfect and don't let anything including social media and that little voice in your head, tell you otherwise.