Standards factor into to a lot of segments of our life. Personally we have standards for how we present ourselves, what we should achieve and with whom we should associate ourselves. Professionally, standards and expectations are set for us regarding how we should behave, work, dress and interact with coworkers or customers. These are both necessary and subjective, depending on your situation. It healthy to have standards professionally and in your personal life that you strive to live up to.

Standards become an issue when we think about society’s standards for us. On a base level this can be okay. There are basic rules and laws that keep us safe and maintain peace and order. Beyond that we see a societal push for standards that seem unattainable to the common person. By far the biggest perpetrator is the media. As someone with an educational background in advertising, it's frustrating when people blindly blame the media for overarching problems without calling attention to specific issues and instances. To a lot of people, the media is conceptually a big brother conglomerate that dictates what we do and why. I personally believe that the media has become a safe target upon which we focus all of our grievance; however, there are elements of the media regarding shaping standards and ideals that I believe are harmful and disparaging.

In a broad sense, the media shapes and distributes the majority of our nationwide/global communication. It is the voice that tells us what is happening in the world. Aside from the traditional news media, there are social media, magazines, lifestyles blogs and gossip websites telling us what is cool, what is attractive, what we should look like. This is one component of the media that I find damaging.

All of these sources point to the same standards of beauty that are very specific and very hard to achieve, isolating those that do not fit in that box. Beyond that, it’s impossible to maintain these standards if you do choose to comply, because beauty ideals change and evolve. While we are still a culture that values fair skin and thin but curvy (in the right places), fashion and makeup beauty standards evolve drastically every few years. Using eyebrows as an example, in the late 90’s/early 2000’s thin eyebrows were in. Women tweezed and plucked their eyebrows until they were tiny lines on their foreheads. As we moved into the second half of the 2000’s, we saw bushy eyebrows come back. Now in the 2010’s, if you don't line a fill in your eyebrows, then they aren't good enough. The same analogy can be used for lipstick, eyeshadow and hair colors/styles.

One of the most alarming things I've seen lately is a number of articles saying that “breasts are out and it's all about the backside now.” While young women can learn to fill in their brows and change their hair if they feel they need to maintain society’s beauty standards, this is straight up body shaming. I read several articles discussing how no one cares about breasts anymore and now girls need to have large butts to get attention. Disregarding the blatant sexism of this article, it is a great example of how the media dictates standards of beauty that are impossible to emulate.

As we see more and more young people suffering from depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. It is important to remind them that the media’s standards of beauty should not dictate their self-worth. Body positivity is a very important concept to introduce to your child at a young age. In this day and age, there is no way to protect your child from these damaging messages. Beauty standards are constantly reinforced through advertising, television/movies, even the games your children are playing. Because you cannot keep them from taking in this media, you must arm them with positivity and self-worth so they will not internalize it. By instilling these values in your children, you will provide them the necessary skills to combat harmful standards throughout their life.

-          Bria