The article discusses the harmful impact of beauty standards that promote unrealistic body ideals, particularly affecting women and femmes. These ideals create a culture where individuals equate their self-worth with physical appearance, leading to detrimental consequences such as disordered eating and body shame. The beauty industry's fixation on thinness, youth, and flawlessness drives profit by instilling insecurity in consumers. The author, a therapist, emphasizes the need for broader definitions of beauty to cultivate self-compassion and acceptance, challenging the narrative that our bodies must be fixed or controlled to be valued.
"Look younger. Get smaller. Erase the lines. Tighten, tone, conceal." We're told these things so often we mistake them for truth.
We are taught to treat our bodies as problems to be solved rather than homes to live in. And that leaves many people vulnerable to disordered eating, compulsive exercise, obsessive self-monitoring, and shame that never seems to end.
Entire industries, including fashion, fitness, wellness, and anti-aging, profit from our insecurity.
The fixation on thinness, youth, and 'flawlessness' isn't rooted in health or self-expression; it's about control and conformity.
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