Obsessed With Appearances

So yesterday I was home sick and found myself watching Oprah.

“American girls in crisis”
“3-year-old obsessed with her looks”

I know, I know, it’s a daytime talk show. But do they always lay the sensationalism on so thick?

The show was about three- and four-year-old girls who think they’re fat and a teenager who hates how she looks. Mind you they all look like models (and the teen girl is actually a model). The teen’s mother says, “She’ll be upset about how fat she is, but there’s not an ounce of fat on her.” Oh the tragedy of being a model and not being able to see how gorgeous you are. What if she did have an ounce (dare I say pound?) of fat on her? Everyone would probably expect her to be upset then. And they could rush her onto a weight loss reality show.

But who could possibly understand why these “perfect” looking children think they’re ugly. The mothers blame images in the media, peer pressure, and activities like cheerleading for their daughter’s obsessions with weight. But the therapist on the show quickly turns the blame back on the mothers. Obviously they have passed their own insecurities on to their daughters. Hey, I’m all for personal responsibility and encouraging people to improve and all, but isn’t that just a little too easy? Way to turn a huge, complex issue into one person’s fault. Yep, when in doubt, blame the mother.

And then there was a Jenny Craig ad. Followed by a Weight Watchers ad and a cosmetics ad. What was that one mother saying about images in the media? Oh, right. She was just avoiding responsibility.

I guess I should give Oprah the benefit of the doubt. The show was demonstrating that nobody thinks they can live up to the ridiculous images of “beauty,” even if they are the models in the images. But I just can’t get past the fact that a lot of people are probably looking at these girls and thinking, “Oh what a shame. These girls think they’re fat and ugly, when really they’re thin and beautiful.” And I doubt that these people will come away with the message that everyone is beautiful regardless of how they look.

And I’m not talking “inner beauty.” I’m talking beautiful looking, beautiful personality, beautiful everything. The show resorts a lot to talking about how it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside—you’re beautiful on the inside. But I’m so sick of that cop-out. If someone’s appearance doesn’t fit your standards of beauty, the answer isn’t to just turn your attention to their “inner beauty.” We need to eradicate the whole concept of “beauty standards.” And to do that we’ve got to start saying and believing that people look beautiful in all their forms.