INSTITUITON
There is nothing wrong with wanting to look presentable. People should go out in public with good personal hygiene habits and should want to wear cloths appropriate for the situation that they find themselves in. However, sometimes people can go to far to one end of an extreme and become obsessed with their physical appearance to the point that it negatively affects their life. As will be seen in this essay, young people are especially susceptible to carrying too much about their physical appearance. This can have negative effects on their health, their social lives, and the personal relationship with themselves.
A leaflet put out by the Royal College of Psychiatrists titled “Surviving Adolescence” points out ”the teenage years can be an emotional assault course for all concerned” (RCPsych, 2014). It is during these years that adolescents number one concern is acceptance of their peers. It is also this time that youth are first learning the ropes of adulthood, so they are not always confident and may suffer self-esteem issues. Since how a person looks and the sort of clothes they wear play a role in how well they are accepted in their peer group, some young people can become obsessed with acting or looking a certain way.
There are documented reasons for this phenomenon. Because adolescent bodies are changing both physically and emotionally, they must content with suddenly looking different. For males their voices will change and they will begin to have body hair where there wasn’t before. Women also will have body hair wear they did not before and will have physically changes such as breast coming in. The uncertainty of these changes is coupled with having to deal with the chance that they might be made fun of if they do not act or look a certain way (RCPsych, 2014).
One study conducted in Australia of 50,000 young people aged 11-24 found that body image was the #1 concern. This was followed by stress and conflicts within the family (Reedman, 2010). While this was a study conducted in Australia, this is a trend that is happening all across the world. The second concern of family and stress can actually be fed by the first concern of body image. Because when a person does not feel good about who they are and how they look, it puts a strain on their other relationships.
Obsession with physical appearance can lead to a host of other psychological problems. These emotional problems can include eating problems like anorexia or bulimia. It can also lead to over-eating which is a known sign of emotional distress. When someone is always concerned with how they appear it leads to anxiety, which at worst can cause panic attacks (RCPsych, 2014) The RCPsych leaflet on the matter mentions that four out of ten adolescents have cried out of despair because of how they appear and more than one in five adolescents have thought so little of themselves that they have concluded that life is not worth living.
Body image can become so obsessive that it is all a person thinks about. The RCPsych leaflet says, “Weight can be a real problem. If an adolescent is overweight and is criticized or made fun of, they are more likely to dislike themselves and to become depressed” (RCPsych, 2014). The authors go on to say “This can lead to inactivity and comfort eating, which worsens the weight problem - dieting can actually aggravate the situation” (RCPsych, 2014).
The solution is for the adults in children’s life to continually reinforce the idea that fat or thin, teens should accept themselves for who they are, not the image that the mas media and pop culture tells them that they should be. They should be encouraged to express themselves through appearance and clothes, not because it is what other teens tell them that they should wear it, but because it is a personal expression of who they are as individuals.
The media certainly plays a role in enforcing unrealistic expectations of how a person should look, or what it means to be beautiful. Anne Hampshire, a Mission Australia representative (the organization that conducted the survey) said that “Body image was evenly split between young people worried about their personal appearance and the unrealistic portrayal of ‘the perfect body’ in the media elsewhere” (Reedman, 2010).
Human beings as a species have an enormous diversity of appearance. Unfortunately, it is what the media that reinforce a certain image of how a person should look if they want to be considered beautiful. Studies show that this affects a young person’s self-esteem, which in turn affects their health, confidence and relationships. Believing that beauty is an outward manifestation instead of an inner state is a harmful belief. Parents and teen leaders should teach to accept people for who they are and not how they appear. Otherwise they face mental health issues, which will negatively affect them in the present and could lead to greater consequences later in their lives.
References
Freedman, M. (n.d.). The #1 concern for young people is body image. And stress..Mamamia The 1 concern for young people is body image And stress Comments. Retrieved April 18, 2014, from http://www.mamamia.com.au/health-wellbeing/the-1-concern-for-young-people-is-body-image- and-stress/Surviving Adolescence | Health | Patient.co.uk. (n.d.). Patient.co.uk. Retrieved April 16, 2014, from http://www.patient.co.uk/health/surviving-adolescence
