By Alyssa Clark, Staff Columnist
Ask anyone to describe California, and three things will come to mind: beautiful beaches, beautiful weather and beautiful women. Songs are written about it, television shows portray it and the media depicts us as individuals who pride ourselves on appearance. Sadly enough, we seem to enjoy this label all too much. The embarrassing truth of how demeaning it is should be reason enough for us to inspire change.
This timeless stereotype has helplessly forced California into adopting a narrow-minded sense of beauty. Surrendering to this victimized mentality is not only cowardly, but sickening because that only promotes its acceptance. The obsession with looks and body image plagues women across all societal standards. My question remains: When is it ever going to be enough?
The emphasis on body image has resurfaced, in part because of the national obesity epidemic. The public’s concern about this issue has propelled professionals to develop alternative methods for handling weight loss.
At the Obesity Society’s annual meeting in San Diego this year, two distinct possibilities were invented to confront the spreading epidemic: a surgery in which a balloon device is surgically implanted into a patient’s stomach, and self- administered pill-type capsules. If it is becoming medically acceptable to walk around with a rubber balloon in our stomachs to lose weight, what is stopping girls from thinking it’s OK to put their fingers down their throats?
Kids see pills as harmless because they are prescribed by a doctor, and this is opening the door to the youngest of the insecure to catch this infectious misconception. We have to ask ourselves whether this “easy way out” surgical mentality is healthy, because an unnecessary number of women are taking advantage of it. California houses these abusers, and with the desperate lengths weight control options have been stretched to, it’s scary to think of who will receive the treatments.
My concern not only stems from the desperate avenues we have taken to control weight, nor the easy accessibility of these drastic measures to vulnerable individuals, but also from the message it sends to the youth of our state.
Think about it. If it isn’t scary enough to see the overly Botoxed faces of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on television, what will it take to end the journey to perfect beauty? We instill this obsession of what is beautiful if not intentionally, but inevitably into the impressionable youths living in our beautiful state. Little girls are always becoming more conscious of their weight, hair color and their “flaws.”
How can we not expect this to happen when the skewed perception of beauty is everywhere they turn? The cliché “natural is beautiful” speeches we are so quick to spew out are nothing more than empty words, because unless kids see this personified, they are never going to accept it.
On a “The Tyra Show” episode, parents attended a fake casting call for child models, and a mother went as far to say she would take her daughter to get a nose job in order to guarantee her 15 minutes of fame. My disgust isn’t directed toward the parents anymore, it’s actually thinking about what runs through the child’s mind when they sit there and absorb the words coming out of their parents’ mouths.
Other shows, such as TLC’s “Toddlers & Tiaras” are just as guilty of instilling this twisted vision into girls who aren’t old enough to spell “toddlers” or “tiaras” yet. Teeth whitening, tanning beds, counting calories — is this what makes us beautiful?
Reducing beauty to a set of shallow and unrealistic standards is not only irresponsible, but it is fueling an epidemic of insecurity and low self-esteem that will continue to plague generations. Come on California, we’re promoting a loss of innocence in the worst possible way.
– Alyssa Clark is an English sophomore.
—The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.
