Obsession for beauty: common causes and symptoms

We live in a time when the external image is so important that it has come to condition our lives. The obsession with beauty is nothing new; However, in a hyper-connected world, social networks and television have heightened this concern for maintaining a physical perfectionism that is worrying both for its social impact and for the psychological.

And it is that in a world in which we are subjected daily to an incredible amount of stimuli (advertising, series, publications on social networks, etc.), the lack of time must be compensated by ways of filtering what we interested. And what is the fastest way to do it? Judging aesthetics, appearances. Hence the obsession with beauty has become a kind of parasite that direct our goals and motivations both individually and collectively; both of us feed it.

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What is meant by obsession with beauty?

Northwestern University has determined that the obsession with beauty has become a kind of social disease

, something like a psychological disorder. Specifically, they have noticed that women suffer such pressure due to their external image, that statistically they are more likely to think obsessively about their image, compared to the of others.

In the words of Renee Engeln, professor of psychology and director of the Body and Media Lab department, this obsession with beauty causes women to invest all their energies in pretend what they are not and please the public, rather than set on other goals such as professional or intellectual development, to name a few examples.

The image industry and aesthetic products are largely responsible for the obsession with beauty. Feminist groups and organizations, as well as researchers, assure that these types of companies distort women's perception of their physical beauty.

Some alarming data

According to some sociological studies in which Renee Engeln herself has participated, 82% of adolescent women spend a lot of time comparing their bodies to those of models and celebrities. On the other hand, 70% of women in adulthood claim to feel better valued and considered when they have made an effort to resemble these media models.

Within this same group of women, different conclusions have been drawn. Women obsessed with beauty are much more likely to have symptoms of depression, eating disorder Y strong desire to undergo surgical operations to change the image of her.

Another data that reinforces the concerns for beauty and perfection is that on average, women have up to a total of 35 different beauty products at home, and they spend no less than 50 minutes a day to prepare before going to the Street.

The obsession with beauty: barrier for equality

Renee Engeln goes further and sharpens the problem to the social sphere. When we carefully analyze what any woman spends part of her time and financial resources in "looking pretty" versus what the male sex invests in the same, we find a gender and equality problem between the two.

When the woman of the time consumes an hour of her work to fix her hair and have a session of makeup and the male partner spends only ten minutes, you have to stop and ask yourself: what happens here?

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Does this problem affect men?

It would be very simplistic and hypocritical to say that beauty problems only affect women. Men are also concerned about their appearance, are pressured to be handsome and are conditioned by some stereotypes.

Now, if someone compares the level of obsession with beauty, they will realize that there is a large gap between both sexes. And this is very easy to measure; It is only necessary to compare the number of plastic surgeries that women undergo with that of men.

When we find 80-90 percent of women who undergo a high risk operation for life and health, compared to the remaining 20-10 percent of men, there is no doubt in affirming that this problem affects women in an unequal way. women.

Is there a solution to the problem?

It is a difficult question to answer. The real problem is that the obsession with beauty it is a cultural problem. It is not a physical pathology, nor is it a simple wrong choice made individually. Solving this problem would not consist so much in changing the routines of the person suffering from this obsession; we must transform the culture and reject that absurd idea of ​​feminine perfection, the ideology of the angelic princess. One can "kill" the messenger, but one cannot kill the message.

Clearly there is a solution, but the problem It must be fought at the root, with education and raising awareness in society as a whole. As with other psychosocial problems, change can be made by making some small gestures, small actions. If many people join in these small changes, it can take a cultural turn, a turn of values ​​and ideas.

How do you start with these changes? Both individually (stop fighting to look less than others, less attractive than the actress protagonist of the film) as a collective (publicly rejecting the use of the role of "vase woman", for example). You have to change, above all, the way you speak, the type of conversation.

As has been commented from the beginning, the obsession with beauty is exaggerated in social technological media (social networks) such as Instagram, Facebook or Tweeter. Before posting a photo and seeking public acceptance, we must ask ourselves why we do it.

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