Girl in the Mirror

Every time I looked in the mirror I see a girl pointing out my defects. Oh your cheeks are too big, you are too short, your nose is slanted, your eyelashes are not long enough, your breast are too big, your hair is not straight, your lips are not pink enough, your teeth are not perfectly aligned, you are too fat. Everywhere I go, she follows; she is in the mirror, in the shadows, in my thoughts and even in my dreams. I don’t seem to escape from her; she is a plague, an epidemic, a parasite that feeds out of you.

Sometimes I question myself, is there really something wrong with me? Do I have to change my appearance in order to be happy, to be “beautiful”? Do I really have to become something that I’m not, in order to fit in with today’s society and its misconception of true beauty; being thin? Why can’t I be beautiful the way I look? What is beauty anyways? Today 3 out of 5 girls fight against the girl in the mirror every day. They can not escape from her because she follows them day and night. The girl in the mirror has no compassion. She criticizes girls as young as 7. What she does is build insecurity and low self-esteem, later on leading to depression.

When we go shopping, does the mannequin looks like you? No. Of course not, the mannequin is the concept of the perfect body; its slender, tall, it’s beautiful. It’s the image, the goal we all want to achieve, and that’s how we desire to look like. The clothes look perfect on the mannequin and you fall in love with the clothes but when you try them on it doesn’t look as beautiful in contrast with the mannequin. In that precise moment that you see your image, you start to hate it because once again the girl in the mirror appears to criticize your imperfect image. You leave the store empty-handed, depressed and with no desire to go to other stores. Also, clothes are designed to fit a standard body proportion. If you are a size 10, the pants length automatically is longer than the size 3 pants. So what is a size ten petite girl going to do? Obviously she can’t buy the pants because they are extremely long.

Not only has the fashion industry set in this absurd rule but also the media. Every time we see a commercial or an advertisement, the individual that is successful, happy and around many people is thin; then they show you an overweight person sitting in front of the T.V. lonely and eating. Every commercial made, the models used for the ad are skinny. Commercials like Cover Girl will never choose a thick woman to advertise their products. You will never see a chubby or petite Victoria Secret model and if you do you’re either dreaming or hallucinating. Not even to promote plus sizes clothing, they use thick models instead they keep the slender model and waste their time fixing the model in the computer to make it seem heavier.Also movies portray thick women as something disgusting and repulsive. Most of the time when thick women appear is either to make fun of them or they are villains. “Date Movie” is a perfect example for the prejudice against heavy woman. In the movie every time thick women appear everyone seems to get grossed out making facial expressing as if they were going to vomit. The movie shows if you are not slender you will end sad and lonely.

Don’t we all love Barbie dolls, aren’t they beautiful? Don’t we always used to play with them when we were little? But have you ever seen a chubby Barbie doll? Is there such doll that looks like we do, normal? I know the answer is no, but why isn’t there any? All of them have what we all idolize, perfection, long flowing hair, thin waist, curvy body, firm breasts, and perfect facial features. All of their clothes seem to fit perfectly. These Barbie dolls are creating a false illusion in little girls; they love the doll so much that they want to be like them. These little girls grow up with the concept of how a girl should look like. They do the impossible to look exactly like them; they constantly fear the fact of gaining weight and they even dye their hair blond to be just like their role model, Barbie.

Beauty is relative and a misunderstood concept which can be defined in superfluous ways. Many think that beauty is art; others may say is life and the rest may say perfection but I don’t think they even know what perfection is. I say beauty is in every single person and everybody has being blessed with beauty because beauty can be manifested in many ways. For example, Cassie is beautiful because she is friendly. Rosa is beautiful because she can turn words into a magnificent poem. Karla is beautiful because she helps others. Carolina is beautiful because she is an understanding mother. Kate is beautiful because she makes others laugh, and the list is infinite. Beauty is in your character, beauty is who you are. Accept yourself so once and for all the girl in the mirror can no longer control you, liberate yourself and destroy the uncontrollable plague.