Beauty is Only Skin Deep

It’s tough growing up chubby in a society where the concept of beauty is inseparable from the concept of slimness. it’s awful to go to family reunions and hear well-meaning aunts and uncles say, “Oh, look at you, you’re getting fat!,” and they have no idea how much that hurts on the inside! it’s terrible to go to parties and not be asked to dance because nobody wants to be seen with “the fat girl.” or to be told by the guy you like, “You know, you’d be pretty if only you weren’t so big. Why don’t you lose some weight?” (Most girls I know feel like screaming and punching somebody when they hear such comments.  sadly enough, instead of getting motivated to make healthier food choices, many girls end up running to ice cream or chocolate for comfort.)

However, a girl who’s grown up all her life being told she’s pretty, is also in danger of attributing her self-worth to how she looks. She can end up obsessed with her appearance, and may resort to extreme methods like breast augmentation or being bulimic. If she never learns to develop her outer qualities, she may end up extremely insecure–yes, it can happen to pretty girls, too! Can you imagine how devastating it is to begin to lose the thing you value most about your self–ie. your looks? Looks fade. As people grow older, their skin get looser and body parts begin to sag, many people put in weight, and lines and wrinkles begin to appear. can’t you just picture in your mind the fear that women such as these have to endure as they try to win a losing battle?

It’s absolutely horrible to grow up in an environment where so much emphasis is placed on appearance, and people judge you to be a failure just because your physical features don’t conform to a certain standard of beauty. But hey, who set the standards anyway? It has always bothered me when people say something like, “Wow, you look beautiful. You must have lost weight.” The unspoken equations are hideously wrong. If beautiful equals thinner, then does plumpness equal unattractiveness? No screaming way!

I dare you to challenge standards of beauty! I dare you to disagree with the strict and sometimes impossible ideals of of what’s attractive and what is not. There’s truth to the saying that “Beauty is only skin deep.” –it’s only on the surface. Outer “beauty”, that is. True beauty comes from the character that is deep within you. The truth is, we can all decide to be truly beautiful.