Victoria's Secret Body Image Essay

Every teenage girl goes through a time in her life when she just does not feel good enough. That time when the perception of what a girl should look like is just not realistic. Body image is a big part of a girl's life, no matter if it is a positive or negative one. It helps decides whether or not she will grow up to be confident and strong or scared and nervous. Having a good perception of yourself is important to having a positive body image. However all around us society is shoving “the perfect body” in our face and shaming those of us who don’t fit the cookie cutter image they’ve created. From lingerie store Victoria's Secret, to popular teen magazine Seventeen, all of the women that we up to seem to have that perfect body. How are we letting something like pretty underwear, promote a perfect body for teenage girls? Dove steps in eventually to explain that nobody on this Earth is perfect.
Victoria's Secret is a popular company that has blessed us with wonderful stunning undergarments. Victoria's Secret also blesses us with that perfect cookie cutter image. Their models and

advertisements stress a flat stomach, the perfect height and a perfect chest. Recently Victoria's secret came out with a new advertisement. The ad showed a line of women, baring flat stomachs, new lingerie and the words “the perfect body” above them. Of course this campaign has sparked the fire in a lot of people.
This recent campaign, though meant to be innocent, enraged people all over the country. In Britain the angry people struck back by starting petition.”Every day women are bombarded with advertisements aimed at making them feel insecure about their bodies, in the hope that they will spend money on products that will make them more beautiful” (British Self-Esteem Petition). Alhough nothing officially happened with the petition, thousands of people agreed that there is no perfect body or perfect body type.
Along with the petition, people around the world went to social media to start the #Iamperfect. “You don’t have to be skinny to be perfect” (British Self Esteem Petition). The hashtag encouraged girls to post pictures of the time when they feel the most beautiful. Girls all over the country posted pictures of the times when they felt amazing, and it proved to be a major self esteem booster for young girls everywhere.
Some of the most famous women in the world are the women that teenage girls all over the planet look up to. As teengers we seem to find role models who are famous, gorgeous and sadly also totally unrealistic. We never think, until we are older and have a little more sense, to look around us and see the role models we already have. The women around us, the mothers and teachers and aunts are so much better than someone like Kim Kardashian. They are smarter, kinder and so much more realistic. A popular toiletry company, Dove, did a little research and found that, “Only one fourth of women ages 30-35 have seen their daughters mimicking their positive body behaviors instead of the bad” (Dove Self-Esteem).
Lucy Attley is the brand director at Dove and she stepped in to make sure girls see beautiful role models we already have. “By talking about and treating our bodies in a positive way, we can help the next generation of girls grow up healthy, happy and content” (Lucy Attley). Once again the power of social media was used to create the #Feelbeautifulfor. It encouraged girls to once again post pictures of times they felt beautiful, this time with role model that helped them feel that way. It also helped them find role models that are beautiful, real and true.
Seventeen is another popular company that is dominating our teenage minds.Thousands of teens read it a year and unfortunately for us there is a different famous cover model each month. From Selena Gomez to Lucy Hale, the magazine uses air brushed, photoshopped pictures that promote a certain height, weight and general appearance. According to Doctor Patrick Wanis, “Looking in the mirror and comparing yourself to these magazines leads to self loathing, eating disorders and even in severe cases, suicide” (Fox News).
Eating disorders are common because so many girls want to have that perfectly promoted body,and want to be popular and they end up starving themselves.

In the worst case, they can starve themselves to death. All for the sake of beauty.They do not see that they are already beautiful. According to Doctor Wanis, “Seven out of eight million Americans are women with eating disorders. Only eighteen percent of girls are comfortable with their current bodies” (Fox News). Magazines like this need to try and see reality and realize that girls need real role model, not the made up, primped and bronzed ones. It will do us no good looking at pictures at people are impossible to be. The same source says “Girls who are exposed to magazines like this have a ten percent higher chance of having an eating disorder” (Doctor Wanis). We need a magazine that teaches young girls to be themselves, not some

Barbie.
But in the midst of all these companies and models telling us to be perfect, here comes Dove. They are swooping in like Superheroes to tell us that we all need to hear. That we are beautiful just the way we are. According to Dove “Only four percent of women think that they are beautiful” (Dove Self Esteem campaign). The perfect women comes in all different shapes, sizes, and colors, not that cookie cutter image. Nancy Etcoff, the director of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard and according to her “Each of us is unique, the sum of our clothes, families, backgrounds, choices and lifestyles”. No two girls are the same, but who say that is a bad thing? We are all beautiful and Dove’s goal is to support young people and urge them to be themselves and more body confident. They strive to teach all of us that beauty is not just about what you see, in fact that barely scrapes the surface. Our real beauty comes from within. “When a girl does not feel good about herself, she is not reaching her full potential” (Dove Self Esteem). The sooner we realize the beauty we are blessed the sooner we can reach our full potential.
In our our generation, Society is often telling a girl what she should and should not be. It is actually quite ridiculous. Girls need to have a positive body image and understand that we are beautiful just the way we are. We cannot let things like Victoria's Secret, Seventeen or our bad role models tell us how to look, act, dress and feel. We have to listen to companies like Dove who tell us to follow our own hearts.