Take a look around. Not just the
room you’re in but the world. Look around a store, the television, and
magazines. What do you see? Numerous products saying, “You are not good enough.
You’re not beautiful enough.” Right? “Eat this, it’ll help you look beautiful.
Use this; it’ll help you look beautiful. Wear this; it’ll help you look
beautiful. Do this, it’ll help you look beautiful.” This is what society tells
us and it is no wonder that people never feel good enough. We’re constantly being
told that we need to become a part of certain fads in order to be beautiful,
handsome, good enough. The world
never simply tells you that you are beautiful, naturally, the way you are.
NEWS FLASH: Society lies.
Listen. Really listen, with your
heart…”You are beautiful.” Do you truly believe that? Do you know that? Are you
allowed to believe that? I know I didn’t believe that until last summer and I
never felt like I was even allowed to believe that I was beautiful. It wasn’t
until I went to college and I built a strong enough relationship with Christ to
believe that He made me beautifully. And the truth is, in this poisonous
society, I still struggle with it sometimes.
I truly feel that marketing has
made it close to impossible for people to be satisfied with their image. In
high school, the biggest environment for insecurities, the main topic of
conversation among my friends was diet and exercise. If we lost weight or we
were sore from working out – we were idolized. But why? Who ever told us that
we had to constantly strive for some ultimately skinny, muscular body? And what
happened to individuality? Now I’ve sadly come to notice this seeping into
young children’s lives. Once I was fixing breakfast for a little boy I was
babysitting and he asked me, “How many calories are in this?” My heart broke. Why
on Earth was a five year old asking me how many calories were in his breakfast
cereal? Why did it matter? And even now that I am out of high school many of my
friends will talk about their workout plans and the do’s and don’ts of their
diets. They whine and cry when someone orders a frappacino or brings brownies
to a party and they eat it too. They practically hate themselves when they miss
working out one day of the week.
Not only have I experienced these
insecurities with girls but also in young men. They’ve observed that women
these days are so obsessed with bodily image that they are more physically
picky about their men. Men find themselves self-conscious about their weight
and image now, too – whether they’re strong enough, muscular enough, fit enough,
chiseled enough for a woman to notice them. But who ever told them this was how
they should form their conscience? I’ll tell you - It’s the magazines with
technologically altered bodies and marketing’s push for low-cal, non-fat, high
protein, high fiber, low-sugar, highly processed and chemically altered food. It’s
health and diet shows and gym ads. It’s pictures of anorexic women with
boob-jobs who link to a workout plan on Pinterest. It’s pornography and birth
control rooted at people’s lack of self control and lack of knowledge of their
own worth and capability to choose virtue over sin. It’s everywhere and we
can’t escape it.
To be continued…
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