Hello. My name is Hayley Michelle, and this is The Pretty Project. The Pretty project was created to educate people about what i see as a personal problem with the world today; the beauty obsessions and that teenage girls do not feel comfortable in their own bodies: How they crave to be something classified as "Beautiful". But what really is beautiful?
Beautiful- having qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, think about, etc.; delighting the senses or mind. Excellent of its kind. Wonderful; very pleasing or satisfying.
It has become more common that girl between 12-25 make up most of the population of people who have eating discords. The numbers show up to 95%,a s in an account last year. Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among teens today! The even scarier statistics, is that over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.
All for the price of "being beautiful”.
But beauty is not that tooth-pick, blonde on the cover of the magazine! Do you know that 47% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures?! And 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape. 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner (*Collins, 1991).
And 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat (*Mellin et al., 1991). That is 81% of the ten year old population. When your ten...you should be afraid of spiders. Not a fear of becoming fat.
Beauty has become more and more of a poison to teenage girls, rather than a friend.
But what I think the public does not understand about beauty, is the fact that beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Last time I had checked...I had not appointed anyone to be the judge of perception. People are constantly being blinded everyday by being told they are not beautiful. Chances are that the person, who had told you that, is not beautiful themselves.If you cannot see the beauty in yourself, then you can see the beauty in no-one.
But people in today's society do not understand that! They don't see the need to look for beauty in themselves; rather they see the need to change the things that they find un-beautiful!
The fact that nearly most female American’s have an interest or have already had breast implants, Botox, liposuction and many more beauty procedures that go under the knife is sad and rising number. Cosmetic surgery skyrocketed 299% from 1997 to 2003, and is still increasing in the number of women who feel as if they're real bodies are not pretty enough for the world, so they have to replace reality with plastic.
But for many today, it is becoming what I would call an "epidemic".
The fact that more teenage girls are developing beauty obsessions every day is a terrible thing that is happening to the world. And it should be our job, as human beings, to create a safe environment for these future generations to find comfort and satisfaction in the reflection in the mirror!
"The borderline between a usual desire to be beautiful and an unhealthy obsession can be rather thin. You think you’ll be happier having new breasts. But then you get a good idea to get rid of the small folds on your hips and also of the bags below eyes. It’s the same as other things in life – we set our hearts on certain dreams: when I’m done studying, I’ll meet my Prince Charming; when my house is built, when the kids are older and I go back to work, when it’s spring, summer...Is it possible to achieve happiness, considering the body does age? " - article about beauty obsession.
The rate of girls that are longing to be everything but themselves is sad. I should know, because I was..I am one of those girls. But I am one of those girl who doesn't want to be Barbie anymore. I want to be a real girl. I girl who is happy with her life, and with herself. I don't want to long for beauty anymore. I want to long for a better life. For me, my friends...the whole world. All it takes is one girl at a time to stand up for what they believe in.
This is what The Pretty Project is about. Standing up for the girl in the mirror who doesn't like what she sees. I take it personally upon myself to do everything I can to try and change that. By then end of 2013, I want to see those numbers downsized drastically. I want to see a smile when I look in the mirror.
I want everyone to see a smile when they look in the mirror.
The price of beauty is high. Most of the time, I think it is not worth the pain we put ourselves through... Why should we suffer for fake beauty, when all we have to do is look deep down in ourselves and find what we like! All we have to really do is love ourselves, and one another.
"All you need is love"
Thank you for reading,
Hayley Michelle
(Information on today's sources is linked below. Please read and inform yourself about what's going on and make a difference. Every little bit counts. Tell a strange their beautiful, or you r niece. Tell everyone. And you can see that you have just influence a life in a positive manner. <3 thank you<3)
http://www.laderma.com/obsession-with-beauty-2.asp
http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/
http://www.webmd.com/healthy-beauty/news/20050228/how-many-young-women-get-plastic-surgery
Collins, M.E. (1991). Body figure perceptions and preferences among pre-adolescent children. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 199-208.
Mellin, L., McNutt, S., Hu, Y., Schreiber, G.B., Crawford, P., & Obarzanek, E. (1991). A longitudinal study of the dietary practices of black and white girls 9 and 10 years old at enrollment: The NHLBI growth and health study. Journal of Adolescent Health, 23-37.
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