Teenagers and the Desire of Perfection

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

download word file, 4 pages 3.0

Fashion magazine after fashion magazine has plagued our society with images of ?perfect people.? Magazines such as Cosmopolitan, YM, Vogue and Sports Illustrated show pictures of beautiful, skinny women and attractive, muscular men. Airbrushed to ultimate perfection by computers, the photographs present society with visual guidelines of the perfect body, which everyone should obey. Because fashion magazines present perfection as society?s status quo, millions upon millions of teenagers all across America suffer from eating disorders and steroid addictions, among many other life threatening habits. Millions of American teenagers also try cosmetic surgery in order to obtain ultimate perfection. The metaphysical desire to be perfect, as well as the desire to be categorized with those that have the perfect body type is slowly killing our society?s teenagers.

The group which is the most affected by fashion magazines is teenagers. Not one teenager, myself included, if asked, can honestly say that he or she has never been affected by a fashion magazine before in their life.

Statistic say that over 50% of women and 40% of men develop, and struggle with, an eating disorder by the time that they reach the age of 30; and frighteningly enough, only 8% of these people are able to turn their lives around and recover completely after they have developed an eating disorder. In middle school and high school, I was rather popular. I read fashion magazines all the time, to avoid wearing something that was ?out of fashion.? As I look back now in college, I realize the frivolousness of this obsession. However, in seventh grade, my obsession took over my life. As I desired more and more to look like the people in the fashion magazines, I developed an eating disorder. I was among the lucky 8% that was able to recover completely from...