Western Beauty Standards

Discover how Western beauty standards influence women and girls in everyday life, as well as their relation to fitness culture.

"Western beauty plays a significant role in shaping women's and girls' relationship to their bodies by promoting an unattainable beauty that does not leave room for cultural and individual difference." (McKay)

Western beauty standards are the beauty ideals that are perpetuated in our culture that generally define the ideal female body as slender, youthful, white, and feminine (Reade). It is important to note that these are standards places on women, not men. Men are not held to the same beauty standards as women, and women are judged more harshly than men on their appearance and size. A women’s body “needs” attention, needs to be up kept and needs to be perfect, whereas men’s bodies don’t. These standards placed on women have been obvious for years and in the past 30+ years have been communicated through the media (McKay). In Western Culture, there is an emphasis on appearance and attractiveness. This emphasis on appearance and beauty dates back to the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians with their focus on beauty to please their divine gods (Norton). For years, women have attempted to change their bodies to fit into the current ideal attractive body. Beauty standards in our culture are tools to oppress and objectify women that are rooted in sexism, racism, colorism, classism, ableism, ageism, and femininity. Women are expected to meet these certain standards to embody the “feminine beauty ideal” (McKay) These standards are clearly and constantly communicated to women through the media, and idealized images place pressure on women to achieve the same look. From a young age, girls are exposed to idealized images of women and taught what it means to be feminine and beautiful. Dr. Ashley McKay says in her article on western beauty pressures that, “Western beauty plays a significant role in shaping women’s and girls’ relationships to their bodies by promoting an unattainable beauty that does not leave room for cultural and individual difference"(McKay).

I remember as a young girl watching Disney Channel, it was obvious who was the “fat and ugly friend” and who was the beautiful friend. In the show, Wizard of Waverly Place for example, the lead's best friend, Harper, was portrayed this way, and she was put in weird, ill-fitting clothes. How detrimental is that for young girls to be shown these idealized bodies at such a young age and made to believe that certain women were beautiful, and others weren’t? Looking back, these women, were thin and beautiful but, they didn’t fit the exact ideal, thus were portrayed otherwise.

Harper and her co-star (the lead)

There is pressure to conform to a fair-skinned, youthful, thin, toned, able-bodied, good-looking woman. Through imagery in media women and girls receive the message that their value depends on their physical appearance (McKay). The media has convinced women that their body is a measure of happiness and value to society. Sophie Serna in her research article on western appearance culture says, “Western media is saturated with an appearance culture that calls for women to be thin and attractive while also citing that this should be something every female should want as an obligation to herself”(Serna). There is this idea that anyone can be thin if they just try, and women should want to try. This is unattainable for so many women due to genetics and lifestyle, yet women are told it is possible so when it becomes impossible women feel like failures.

In Western culture, women and girls are taught that their lives can change if their bodies change, and the media sends this message. Women are conditioned through media to believe that they can buy their way to achieve the beauty ideal (McKay). Women spend thousands of dollars on makeup and weight loss programs just because the media has told them they are not beautiful. The beauty industry is worth billions of dollars merely because society has convinced women that their imperfections must be covered so they can be beautiful. The weight loss industry is worth almost $600 million with a 98% failure rate, yet it still thrives because women are conditioned to believe they are fat and need to lose weight (McKay). The pressure to be thin and beautiful causes immense amounts of stress on women and leave them spending lots of time and money just to fit the ideal. Women will do whatever it takes.

Without the perpetuations of these feelings of failing to meet beauty standards, #fitspiration would not exist. The fitspiration movement is rooted in appearance-based changes because the pressure to be thin is based on aesthetics and appearance, not health. This is evident in trends such as #thinspiration and the prevalence of eating disorders in our society (Talbot, et al). If fitspiration was truly about health, there would not be so much focus on appearance and achieving the standard for ideal beauty. Over the years, the pressure to conform has increased and the standards have become more demanding. Not only do women have to strive for the thin standard but they also must be toned. Women are subscribing to a new toned ideal that emphasizes health and fitness (McKay). Today, the ideal body is a thin and toned one. The women portrayed in fitspiration posts have the “fit” female body and the images maintain the contemporary notions of the ideal female body as slender, youthful, white, and feminine. Fit is part of the new body standard and ideal for women (Reade). This is just another “impossible body standard for women to compare themselves to, and ultimately fall short of,” and fitspiration promotes this problematic standard (Reade).

Many fitspiration images objectify women by only showing images of their bodies promoting the sexualization of women and the societal view that women are only needed for their bodies. Women feel not only that they have to be beautiful and thin, but also sexy. This is so demeaning to females and makes them feel worthless if they don’t look a certain way (Arya &Rai). The women in the fitspiration images fit the beauty ideal and always look put together with their hair done and the perfect outfit on. This is unrealistic! Yet, many women including myself still ask themselves questions such as, “why don’t I look good when I exercise” or “why am I sweating so much and so red?” These unrealistic images of thin and idealized women in our society make women feel like they don’t measure up, and women will go to any extent to look like the women in these posts. Fitness media reinforces that there is only one desirable and healthy body type; being slim, toned, and cellulite-free is “an essential aspect of modern westernized feminism,” and this message is targeted at women in all forms of daily life from magazines at the grocery store, to their social media, and their place of work (Harman).

Fitspiration is helping shape the ideal body type as healthy and fit, as well as reinforcing the thin and attractive western body ideal. Idealized images place pressure on women to achieve certain appearances and aesthetics. The movement also creates an avenue for misinformation to be spread about what health is and looks like, posing significant negative implications on women and how they view their bodies.

If you or a loved one is struggling with an eating disorder; you can call the toll-free, confidential NEDA Helpline, Monday-Thursday from 9:00 a.m.- 9:00 p.m. and Friday from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. at 1-800-931-2237.

Arya, Sakshi Grover, and Shikha Rai. “Body Image Disturbances and Fitspiration: a study of

Social Media Effects on Audience.” Research Journal Social Sciences, vol. 25, no. 3, 2017, pp.137-159, file:///Users/mollyolney/Downloads/Fitspiration.pdf

Harman, Anita. “Exercising Moral Authority: The Power of Guilt in Health and Fitness

Discourses.” International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, vol. 9, no. 2, See How She Runs: Feminists Rethink Fitness, 2016, pp. 12-45.https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/90012237.

McKay, Ashley, et al. “Western Beauty Pressures and Their Impact on Young University

Women” International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies, vol. 6, no.2, 2018, pp.1-11, DOI: 10.15640/ijgws.v6n2p1 http://ijgws.com/journals/ijgws/Vol_6_No_2_December_2018/1.pdf

Norton, Makenzie. “Fitspiration: Social Media’s Fitness Culture and its Effect on Body

Image.” Capstone Projects and Master’s Theses, no. 138, 2017, https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/caps_thes_all/138/?utm_source=digitalcommons.csumb.edu%2Fcaps_thes_all%2F138&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages.

Reade, Josie Anne. “The Female Body on Instagram: Is Fit the New It?” Reinvention:An

International Journal of Undergraduate Research, vol. 9, no.1, 2016, https://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=a4acd934-5928-4235-b95d-5270630390d4%40sessionmgr4008&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#bib1up.

Serna Sophie. “Western Appearance Culture, Media, and the Body as a Project.”

Undergraduate Review: Bridge Water State University, vol. 14, pp. 129-139, https://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev/vol14/iss1/20.

Talbot, Catherine Victoria, et al. “A content analysis of thinspiration, fitspiration, and

bonespiration imagery on social media.” Journal of Eating Disorders, vol. 5, no. 40, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-017-0170-2.