Prompt: How do peers, cultural messages, and the media impact a

person’s body image? How do you think people should handle the
impact of peers, cultural messages, and the media?

In the current high school atmosphere, many high schoolers might think “I wish
I were skinny,” “I wish I had skin like her,” or “I wish I were taller” and only
focus on physical appearance. Influences from peers, social media, and cultural
messages have negatively impacted body image among high school students.
We should handle these negative impacts by understanding the truth about
beauty.

Peers, social media, and cultural messages negatively impact teens’ body image
in different ways. In school, peers pressure each other to compete for the ideal
body. Teens view the ideal body mainly as thin and tall for girls; muscular and
fit for boys. Those who come closer to the ideal body are envied while those
who fall farther are mocked and even bullied. Social media is flooded with
photoshop editing and filters. This software creates a false sense of beauty,
exposing teens to unattainable standards. Even if teens realize this fact, they
will inevitably compare themselves to these impossible beauty standards.
Cultural messages force people to conform to societies’ standards of beauty.
These standards are usually difficult to reach and unhealthy to maintain. As a
result, many teens suffer from low body image and low self-esteem, which can
potentially lead to eating disorders. This false perception of beauty has
permeated throughout teens’ daily lives, disrupting them by distorting their
views of themselves.

The lack of confident body image in teens today has reached levels that are
dangerous, physically and mentally. Helping teens understand beauty is
essential and urgent for addressing these negative impacts.

Beauty is self-respect and confidence. Many teens lack confidence in their

physical traits; however, they don’t realize that physical traits are not what
make them beautiful. Beauty is an internal quality. The classic novel, Jane Eyre,
by Charlotte Bronte, is a great example of the definition of beauty. Jane is a
plain-looking girl who had a miserable childhood. Throughout her

life, she meets people with different sets of values, which don’t resonate with
her, and eventually develops her own. Jane never views herself as inferior to
anyone and never wishes to change the way she appears. She perceives beauty
as “neither of fine color nor long eyelash, nor penciled

brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance.” Jane’s self-respect and

confidence make her stand out as an exemplar of beauty for everyone. Her
character is still iconic today because she possesses values that transcend time.

Beauty is how you treat others. Many teens today lack respect and do not
attempt empathy or understanding for those around them. Instead, they can be
mean and incredibly vindictive. Many teens likely believe that their appearance
matters more than their behavior, unaware that interior ugliness will always ruin
physical beauty. In Stendhal’s novel, The Red and

The Black, Julien Sorel, the main character, is immensely handsome. Born a
woodcutter’s son, he sets his eyes on rising through Parisian society. At the
beginning of his journey for status, he retains kind qualities; however, he
quickly abandons his morals and turns to deceit and self-interest. He pursues
and seduces wealthy and beautiful women in an attempt to climb the social
ladder. It’s hard to believe that such a handsome man “concealed an
inextinguishable will to die a thousand deaths rather than fail to make his
fortune.” His unscrupulous and cruel treatment of others completely mars his
physical beauty and dooms him to an early demise. In fact, Julien Sorel is
known today as a tragic character in French literature.

People with positive and strong internal qualities will always be beautiful even if
they do not conform to society’s physical beauty standards. We need more
people to see their own intrinsic worth to effectively combat the negative
impacts of peers, culture, and media from the root.