Fit or Fiction: Beauty in the Façade of Health

By Hali Udenasuta

Grade: 11

July 19th 2025

What is beauty? A question so simple yet complex. In today's world, unrealistic beauty standards are often disguised as wellness, affecting about 69-91 percent of women worldwide. While beauty standards are one of the crucial pillars in self-image and self-love, impossible standards also come with many downsides. Once dressed up as ‘health’, these standards can shape or create insecurities among many adolescents. Which leads us to ask a question: Are we being sold health or insecurities? 

Building upon this curiosity, it’s pivotal to explore how beauty standards are often masked as wellness and why it's dangerous for teens who constantly live among this fabricated aspect of society. These examples include:

1. Eating disorder rebranded as diet culture

 While normalizing under-eating or cheat days, it is crucial to consider the big picture: are we being healthy, or are we embedding restrictive eating into our diet? Cheat days are often seen as a reward, and yet they fortify unhealthy food habits that can have a lasting effect on health. Diving into the psychological consequences, the National Institute of Mental Health mentions that people with eating disorders are at risk of mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and substance use. Ultimately, a question remains: Are we willing to sacrifice our bodies for the sake of aesthetics?

2. Finding perfection in normal skin

We have to ask ourselves, when it comes to our faces, are we striving for good or perfect? Truthfully, flawless is an illusion and an impossible benchmark that potentially builds up insecurities for the youth. According to Psychology Today, the pursuit of the ideal skin can fuel into perfectionism. This can cause teens who are still developing their own identity to view themselves as inadequate. 

3. Wrinkle-free or carefree?

Aging is a natural process in life; nevertheless, companies are hard-selling aging as ‘unpleasantry’ for the benefit of promoting anti-aging products at the expense of insecurities. Though the idea of anti-aging can raise self-esteem and improve aspects of living, young girls who are influenced by the trend destroy their skin with these products, which induce premature aging, according to Forbes. 

These concepts are a few of many beauty standards camouflaged as health and wellness; hence, to conclude, what are the ways we are able to break away from this unnecessary propaganda? One word. Embrace. Before you compare yourself to people you admire, think for a second and ask yourself, Do you like who you are right now? Whether you do or do not, you are able to create the version of yourself that you want through healthier ways. The most crucial lesson is being able to love or just embrace your identity and exterior to understand your meaning of beauty.

In closing, build your own kind of beautiful. 

Citations

Colvin, Casey. “Women and Body Image Statistics - New 2023 Data.” Harmonyhit.com, 22 June 2023, www.harmonyhit.com/women-and-body-image-statistics-new-2023-data/. Accessed 17 July 2025.

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“Eating Disorders: What You Need to Know.” National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 2024, www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/eating-disorders#:~:text=People%20with%20eating%20disorders%20are,anxiety%2C%20and%20substance%20use%20disorders. Accessed 17 July 2025.

‌“The Teen Skincare Craze and Its Impact on Mental Health.” Psychology Today, 2024, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-clarity/202409/the-teen-skincare-craze-and-its-impact-on-mental-health. Accessed 17 July 2025.

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Escalante, Alison. “Little Girls Are Harming Their Skin with Anti-Aging Products.” Forbes, 27 Feb. 2025, www.forbes.com/sites/alisonescalante/2025/02/27/little-girls-are-harming-their-skin-with-anti-aging-products/. Accessed 17 July 2025.

‌Madan, Palak. “You Can Never Stand up to Society’s Unrealistic Beauty Standards.” Medium, ILLUMINATION, 13 Jan. 2023, medium.com/illumination/you-can-never-stand-up-to-societys-unrealistic-beauty-standards-e2ae505b024b. Accessed 19 July 2025.