Is Skinny the only standard of Beauty?

If you were asked to define what is the standard of beauty, what would you answer? What is beauty and what can represent beauty? Is it only about having a skinny body, photoshopping every picture, forcing ourselves to live in the ‘fake’ world? Some people said that the standard of beauty in different periods represents the majority’s thinking. But I argued that there is no standard of beauty at any time. And people should not force others to follow others’ definitions of beauty.

Since ancient times, beauty has been an eternal topic that human identities always talk about and use physical movement to achieve in China. Starting from 700 years ago with the foot-binding in the Song dynasty to nowadays the well-developed plastic surgery technology. China has experienced different aesthetics through different periods, and with the acknowledgment of more scientific information, the standard has changed into a more healthier and acceptable way. For example, according to historical records, the concubine before only has a short average lifespan. And before, people explained this tragedy using the “Feng Shui” saying that the location of the ancestor of the girl is ominous. Despite the fact that modern technology found out the reason for the tragedy was because the cosmetic contained huge poison elements such as mercury which caused irreversible harm to the human body. Before the standard of beauty was light skin and mercury can make people white. Thus, causing people to over consume mercury to reach the standard of ‘beauty’ leads to a short life span tragedy. Similarly moving the perspective to the modern world, the biggest change is the creation of the internet and technology. As we enter the new era, a human cannot live without electronic devices. Same as before, technology has affected the standard of beauty but this time, the change is negative.

Admittedly, providing a platform such as Instagram and Weibo in China can close the distance between global citizens. But meanwhile, social media has helped to build a disorder aesthetics towards beauty unconsciously. Maybe people didn’t realize that, whenever we saw a post of a blogger wearing a bathing suit on the beach, we would praise their body using the word ‘beauty. As a result, the standard of beauty in our mind becomes the skinnier the prettier. Causing people to have the anxiety of body shaming. Before, I thought I was the only one who has body shame, not until I saw the discussion on Weibo on the topic of “Does body challenge increase body anxiety?” with 220 million views and 52000 discussions (Weibo 2021). I realized that not only me but also other Chinese citizens are having strong body anxiety. Body challenge is a challenge led by celebrities to imitate the movements of the main characters in Japanese animation. Because the main characters in the animation were drawn in the standard of skinny and in the idea of what beauty should look like. A4 waist, iPhone knees, these imitations of celebrities have a higher transmission dynamics and effectiveness to the general public, therefore, causing the anxiety of body shame for the first time to be discussed in the society. The locals should be brought to the front to discuss because it has created so many negative impacts on not only the mental but also the physical health.

In the discussion, the data and statistics of depression patients and suicide become particularly eye-catching. According to the data between February 20 and February 27 and between April 11 and April 19, 2020: “ The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale were used to assess depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms, respectively. A total of 9554 and 3886 adolescents participated in the first and second surveys. During the initial survey, the prevalence of depression was 36.6% while the prevalence of anxiety was 19%. Rates of depression and anxiety increased to 57.0% and 36.7%, respectively, in the second survey.” (Chen) In another world, the level and number of depressed teenagers are significantly increasing. While this data couldn’t exactly say that the increased level of depression was due to body anxiety. I claimed that body anxiety is one of the most important factors causing the majority of teenagers to be depressed. Because of the power of cyber and physical bullying.

In recent years, beauty has become another reason for receiving bullying not only physically but extending to the cyber world. And the victim is no longer the student in the school but also the adult in the society. Nowadays, people take the first impression very seriously and in the anonymous internet world, people can say whatever they want. The Department of Safeguarding Juvenile Rights and Interests of the Communist Youth League Central Committee, China Internet Network Information Center has researched how many people have received cyberbullying because of their body shape and outlooking. The outcome has proven my prediction that “Among underage Internet users, 46.0 percent said they had encountered bad information and 42.3 percent said they had been subjected to sarcasm and abuse” with the number even larger than I have ever thought. (Sohu. Southern Metropolis Daily) Cyberbullying can cause harm harder than physical bullying. Victims who have received cyberbullying before are more easily depressed and have the possibility of them committing suicide. “The average incidence of suicidal ideation (SUICIDAL ideation) among middle school students was 17.7%” by the report of Institute of Psychology, Cas. (Tengxun) The standard of beauty was now applying to not only the general public but also the celebrities. For example, a Chinese celebrity named ‘Kimi Qiao’ has committed suicide because of depression. The tragedy was due to his longtime experience of cyberbullying. People thought his outlook is too feminine and he is not on the standard of beauty. Bullier thought that one odium won’t harm anyone, but thousands of odium had enough power to kill someone. The standard of beauty has caused so many people to experience the same process that Kimi has experienced but although people know the damage the standard of beauty will bring to us, it has not stopped. And it has extended into a creation of a new industry of plastic surgery. To be more skinny, the healthy way seems too time-consuming to the general public. Losing weight by doing exercise is not the top choice for all consumers. People want a faster and easier way to reach the goal of skinny. Therefore causing the creation of diet pills and plastic surgery to be popular. Diet pills can help the human body to lose weight mainly through using chemical elements to control the level of nutrition to be absorbed by the body. The outcome of both the diet pills and the plastic surgery is significant but the side effects are huge. The bounce-back of the weight after a short period may worsen the anxiety level and waste of money. In the discussion, many people said that taking diet pills and plastic surgery is not the best way to be skinny. Conversely, I think that people should not have the idea of wanting to be skinny and the disorder of the aesthetic should be fixed.

Along the same line, the standard of beauty of being skinny is a global problem that almost every country in the world is experiencing. For example, the US is another country that I found was harmed by this idea. In the US, the same situation happens on Instagram with people posting skinny pictures receiving more likes than others. According to the analysis of the National Institute of Mental Health: “An estimated 19.4 million adults in the United States had at least one major depressive episode. This number represented 7.8% of all U.S. adults.” (National Institute of Mental Health. 2021) The invisible pressure of teenagers of the same age makes the anxiety level raise. Furthermore, the topic was brought to the forefront by the opening of a clothing store named” Brandy Melville”. Brandy Melville was a clothing brand founded by Silvio Marsan aiming at the consumer target of young women. The reason for BM being pushed in the center of the discussion is because the BM only produces the small size cloth. Stressing the topic of skinny is the standard of beauty. Causing the majority of girls to be anxious about their out looking and body shape. Meanwhile, people are accusing BM to create body shame in society, the sales of BM continuously increase. Because the standards of beauty of being skinny have already planted deeply into our mindset that we are hard to get rid of.

This global problem has to be solved because of the effectiveness of our generation and the possibilities to affect the next generation. If there is a local solution, it can be the international solution. To solve and change this problem, the global identity needs to work together. The possible solution is to find the balance and rebuild the idea of beauty. Beauty is not only about being skinny. In other words, there is no standard or requirement of being beautiful. Beauty should be different for everyone, it can be a specific personality, a special talent, or confidence. Beauty should not be limited to the outlooking, people need to pay more attention to the inner heart of everyone. “Don’t judge someone without actually knowing them”. Health and self-identities should be the primary factor to determine what kind of people we are. It’s hard to stop others from judging but focusing on our happiness and personal life is more important than living under a rule and standard of what we should be. The process to solve this global problem will take a lot of time but now I found there are two possible small things we can do to create a larger impact in the future. They are to advise the social media platform to cancel the rule of anonymous systems and to post more self-opinion on social media to help those who were deeply affected by body shame rebuild their confidence. When people don’t have to worry about being known for who they are on the internet, the level of free speech will give them the freedom to write whatever they want. Some may argue that if the system is no longer anonymous, then the system is taking over the right of free speaking. However, in my opinion, free speaking doesn’t mean relieving stress or rebelling against society by creating cyberbullying. The starting point of free speech is wrong. Thus, the cancellation of the anonymous system of social media can help to stop cyberbullying to the greatest extent. With less cyberbullying, the majority of people will not be afraid to post their opinions of beauty causing a positive trend and effect to guide the generation to the right aesthetic idea. Same as the situation before, changing society’s problems needs a lot of pioneers. Therefore, I will encourage people to work with other social media such as the most effective magazine vogue in China to make a post about the disorder aesthetic in the modern days. Using the authority power to make effect to the general public. If this local solution works, it can be used as the global solution. Body shame is more serious in China than any other countries and if it works for China, it can also work for other countries. The alternation method can solve the problem in the US is that to protest the idea of skinny is the beauty brought by BM.

In conclusion, skinny is not the standard of beauty, and this disorder of aesthetics needs to be paid more attention in the future and come up with possible solutions to solve. Or it will have negative effects on global humanities development.

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