Our Cosmetic Confusion

We are beautiful. Or so we think. Even I have had my fair share of self esteem issues. But I'm a thirteen year old girl. You know what they tell us on TV? That we should be 5'8" and a size 2. Yes, I know you've heard that before, but what I want to ask now is... What is this doing to the youth of America? We are ingraining in ourselves that beauty is the number one priority. What will happen when the baby-boomers who made this media die off, and we are left with only the children of this generation? We can have people give speeches at middle schools to try to convince everyone they are beautiful, but that only lasts for a day! Most of us can't ever see ourselves as beautiful, but we have to keep trying, because being nice-looking isn't good enough. Will we teach our children that beauty is so important that academics take a back seat? By then our faces will be full of plastic, as well as our stomachs, our butts. What can we do?

How can we fix a problem that runs deep into the core of American society? How can we solve an issue that is being largened every moment? What step do we take first?

First, we have to look at ourselves.

Who are we? What are we showing our children? Is is better to shelter them from the realities of the world, or to harden them to it? Are we plastic surgeons, models? Does Mommy come home from work with tips because she is a hard worker? Or because of the plastic bags in her breasts? The parents in a home influence their children the most out of any person in the entire world of that child. Don't make fun of fat people when they walk by. Or anyone. Because one day your little boy will think he has to be a Taylor Lautner for any girl to fall in love with him.

We can't keep telling make-up companies to use flubbier models, or for runways to be make-up free! But we can tell the kids in our homes, right from the start, that everyone is beautiful. Every fugly person on this earth has beauty. We can't commercialize the low self esteem of teenagers, or make money off of getting fat people skinny. Or soon thats all we will care about. Do something in your own life. Change it even if it's just within yourself.

THINK about how you voice your opinions about this and how your kids react.

THINK about what you believe and whether or not your actions reflect that.