Is Beauty the Dominant Fashion
Beauty can be the moment you listen to a song that you are so concentrated on the melody to when you re-watch the scene of a movie to capture little details of the spectaculous production, the essence of beauty. It feels like beauty is almost always a good thing, but if we take a closer look at how some benefit from it, beauty becomes a privilege that everyone wishes to have.
Why Everyone Seek Beauty
Anjan Chatterjee gave a talk at TEDMED in 2016 on the topic "How your brain decides what is beautiful". He mentioned that attractive people receive all kinds of advantages where they are viewed as more trustworthy and intelligent although these statements are not confirmed. They get paid higher and receive positive feedback due to their looks. It is the formula that beauty equals good.
People are influenced by the image from popular media. Beauty privileges have always been around and have risen further when the launch of social media. We are influenced by celebrities, influencers, and actors. All of them combined unconsciously creating a stereotype that beauty is the privilege making everyone wants to possess beauty. We see medical clinics offering cosmetic surgeries for those who want to enhance their lineament, we see fitness courses to help build the desired shape. We live in a society that beauty is the ideal lifestyle that everyone desires
We live in a society where people are constantly trying to impress others, a society that appreciates results rather than progress. We humans wanted to be praised, to be admired and being beautiful gives that. Not only that, being attractive also gives attention and followers that many people want these days. Media have become the main factor to how we perceive beauty. From waking up to getting to bed, we consume media so much that we are influenced by the images of celebrities in popular media.
Facial features are not the only category in the beauty standard. There are other factors that come to play when we are talking about trying to meet the standards.
Health Fitness
Health fitness is the fundamental of well-being in every aspect of life. Health fitness is achieved through exercise, proper nutrition, and sleep.
In animals, physical fitness is used to display how prepared an animal is for reproduction. Animal's goal is simple, to reproduce and pass on their genes to the offspring. To be able to ensure that they succeed, they seek mates who are healthy, both physically and genetically. Males who have thick fur and fit body means that they are able to afford resources to maintain the body structure resulting in attracting females that seek reproduction.
Health fitness is one of the ways that we use to show our beauty. Since those famous celebrities have such a good state of health, we also want to have that lifestyle as well. To eat good meals, to have a nice place for exercise, to be able to have sufficient sleep. These are the things that we do just to reach the benchmark that was created by celebrities. I'm not saying that this lifestyle is bad, it’s just that people are too obsessed with impressing the society that they don’t do it for themselves.
Financial Fitness
Dr. J. Michael Collins stated that financial fitness is a “state of being wherein a person can fully meet current and ongoing financial obligations, can feel secure in their financial future, and is able to make choices that allow enjoyment of life.”. Financial fitness is also another way that people use as a way to communicate to the society that they have a secure financial fitness. In an ideal world, rich people are the ones that will buy things that are expensive such as watches or sports cars to display their financial fitness. In the real world, however, we are all continuously seeking to possess those lines of products to make ourselves rise above the social system.
Beauty is something that drives and motivates us. We buy attractive things, from toys to cars. We enjoy looking at beautiful things as it gives us pleasant feelings. We love beauty so much that we also have the desire to possess it. Although there is no one telling us what beauty specifically is or whether beauty is good or not, we humans just admire it so much that sometimes it leads to unexpected results. The reason why we want to look attractive might be because we want attention. We are enticed by the popular media that beauty is the accepted standard and that we need to look a certain way to be accepted. Just like Anjan said, attractive people receive all kinds of advantages when they might not even have done anything to receive it. We appreciate the norm so much that we overlook what truly matters and what truly matters is that no one should receive better treatment just because they are viewed as more attractive or more beautiful. Everyone has their own beauty, the society we live in is just overwhelmed by the standards created in the media. Tell yourself that you look good the way you are and no one can doubt that. Live to become more of who you are, not someone else's.