A few days ago I read a news paper article in the Buffalo News (I can not find it on the site) on a thirteen-year-old model in Australia, here is my opinion on the whole ordeal:

In Australia, a 13-year-old model that stands at 5’7, is modeling off women’s clothing. I find it appalling that this girl is such in a hurry to grow up. At 13, I was boy-crazy, had sleepovers, hung out with my friends, stayed up late and did all the preteen things normal girls do. But this girl, struts down the runway in women’s clothing with full, make-upped eyes. Mothers complain that their children are constantly being put down, that they try to make themselves “look good” by media standards. That they are growing up way too fast. Yet one mother is letting her own child do such a thing. It’s disgusting and wrong.

I’m not one to be judgemental, I am not a mother and nowhere near ready to be one, yet I can’t help but think that these women let their children so such things because they want to re-live their own teenager years once more? I’m not sure if that makes any sense but it’s what I believe to be true, a theory if you will.

People need to learn to be happy with how they look. But instead of the media helping us, it harms us. They con us into buying their shampoo or beauty product to make us handsome/or pretty by their standards. I remember, a while back, a news reporter interviewed a model. She asked him if he had any fashion magazines in his house. He said no and she was appalled. Apparently, he was protecting his preteen daughter against this sort of thing. It seems if you don’t conform, if you’re different you’re shunned out of society, which is also pretty pathetic. This is why there are so many eating disorders. This IS the cause of most suicides! In the past few years, suicide rates have rose. This further proves our society is becoming more vain and intolerant as time progresses. Yet so many people are baffled at these rates. To me, it’s as clear as day. I think we, as a people should be more tolerant of everyone and accept people that are different.

Another thing that really sets me off is the whole “sex sells” motto. I think that is horrible. It even increases the insecurity preteens and teenagers feel as they gloss over magazines and ads with scantily clad women and buff men trying to sell the product. These young adults wonder to themselves if they’re supposed to look like that. If that is what the ideal man or woman is. Well I can tell you in my eyes, it isn’t. Those people are ugly to me. They’re so common. Whatever happened with loving yourself? Whatever happened to feeling comfortable in your own skin? I’m comfortable with myself, I love how I look, I just wish other people would feel the same way about themselves. I feel that as society progresses, it’s just getting worse. It may be a negative outlook, but hey, it’s true. There needs to be some sort of drastic change, there needs to be a social revolution.