“Beauty” is not all about “Skinny”-Ancillary 10
As our world enters the technology era, we can’t live without having electronic equipment. People always say that technology is a double edged sword, on one side they brought convenience and inventions to our life but on the other hand, tons of information has rebuilt people’s mindset towards traditional concepts such as beauty, lifestyle and relationships. Admittedly, it’s good to have a platform provided to the general public to share their opinion and experiences. But at some point, posts on social media have created trends and “requirements” of what beauty should look like and what life should be like. Within these social problems, I found out that the aesthetic deformity created was the most serious problem we should focus on now because it has unconsciously harmed and created anxiety for the human identity. Nowadays, people, especially women, are having body shame towards themselves and this problem should be noticed by the rest of the human identity. Body shame has always been the personal anxiety trigger for myself. I thought I am the only one who is unconfident with my body but not until I saw the debate about “Does body challenge increase body anxiety?” on the biggest social platform in China. Weibo is the biggest social platform in mainland China, where all the latest news will be updated on this platform. And the “Body Challenge” is an online challenge started by celebrities to do things such as A4 waist and IPhone knees which requires a really skinny body. Before, when the technology wasn’t that developed, body shaming didn’t exist, with people having the opinion that being healthy is the priority. People were born with different size of bones, the body shape somehow wasn’t determined by how much they eat or exercise. We think that beauty is when someone has confidence. No matter the body shape. But now, when people are receiving more information through the technology world, our mindset has changed. In modern society, beauty is someone who can do the “Body challenges” in another word, to be skinny. All the famous bloggers or celebrities are all skinny, which makes the general public believe that skinny is the only way to be liked and to be pretty. In my research, sales of medicines with the title “Losing weight without working hard” have skyrocketed in recent years with more and more women wanting to be skinny. And for those who don’t want to be or can’t be that skinny, are accused of being ugly or don’t have the right to share their life on the platform. Under the self accusation and the cyber bullying, the depression level has increased, following by the increase of suicide cases. The public trend of body shame has created strong anxiety to the modern world, losing weight without proper methods causes many people recieved a negative impact on their both mental and physical health. Skinny doesn’t have the range, therefore the skinnier the prettier. Although I know that this definition of beauty is wrong, it still affects my lifestyle because whenever I eat too much I feel guilty about gaining weight. Additionally, the trend is not only shown in China, but also globally. In the US, instagram is also facing the same problem with the wealthy and skinny girls receiving more “likes” than others. Thus, in order to prevent more and more people from being harmed by this beauty deformity, the problem should be and needs to be addressed, beauty is not only being skinny, it can be confident and healthy. The potential solution will be to post more opinions of what I think of the question and encourage people to also fight for themselves. One person will be hard to affect the world, but when more and more people who are being stressed by this problem stand up together against this problem, our power and effectiveness is countless.
