Women nowadays are experiencing prejudices against their body-shapes.
They are expected to be slim or skinny; only in this way can they be
considered pretty. And they are bombarded by messages that constantly
remind them to pay attention to their body-shape.
The messages come mainly through the media. To begin with, there are
numerous TV commercials recommending various products to help people
lose weight. These commercials feature examples of successful weight
loss cases to show how their products work efficiently. A woman who
used to weigh 200 pounds is shown to be slim and pretty now because of
this product, and there is even one of her previous pictures to prove
how fat she had been. She would then tell the audience how much she
appreciates the product for it has given her a new life. Such a
commercial makes the female audience think that the product will work
equally well on them, or at least make some improvement on their
appearance.
In an indirect way, our media also help create anxiety among women
viewers. For in some TV variety shows, the hosts would make fun of fat
members in the audience who happen to be there. Or they would talk
endlessly about some celebrities who have recently successfully lost
weight as examples for the public to imitate. All of these would make
the audience think that being slim is the only way to be pretty, and the
media is at the same time spreading a prejudice—not being slim is a real
shame!
Even regular daily TV news programs are helping to spread the message of
「thin is beautiful」 and the influences are even greater than those TV
commercials and variety shows. Besides news on crimes, politics, and
financial business, news programs always end with some reports on the
latest fashion shows. It seems no big deal to report fashion shows;
however, the models in those shows are all morbidly slim and skinny, and
it will influence the audience a lot in an unconscious way. With TV
commercials, people are more alert about their content and thus may
judge the weight-loss commercials as bad, sick and negative; but when it
comes to nightly news, few people are alert and the prejudice is passed
on unconsciously.
The beauty of appearance and body-shape has become a primary concern of
women. Many women are starving, not because they are too poor to buy
the food or they are suffering from a famine, but because they are on
diets. They have to count every ounce of the food that they take in.
If a woman or a girl is fat, she will always be looked down by others in
some way. She doesn』t have beautiful clothes to wear for there are few
larger-size clothes designed for people like her. What』s worse, as
Females are paying attention to their body-shape, males are
concentrating on their careers and things that indeed have concrete
power. Considering this, Women should be more confident of themselves
and destroy all those prejudices. They should put more concentration on
things that can strengthen women』s rights and get more welfare for
women, instead. After all, as long as a person is confident, she is the
most beautiful one.