From television screens to magazines, standards of an exemplary body image for women are constantly advertised. Prominent messages that women must be tall and thin with mile-high long legs and a flat stomach to be considered “beautiful’ demean the meaning of true beauty as many women strive to resemble those unrealistic body images. These false “norms” are the kind of images that children and teenagers are exposed to, which makes them want to look like what they think is "perfect." It is absurd that women around the world look less about themselves simply because they do not bear resemblance to those models who eat ice for meals and exercise more than professional athletes. Those women are not run-of-the-mill women; they are pushed to echo the standards pressed upon by society into a one-hundred-pound body.

Yes, Carrie Underwood’s legs are goals. Yes, Beyoncé’s butt is an out-of-this-world kind of amazing. However, their bodies are so constantly put so close to the camera and so closely criticized-No wonder they work so hard to live up to the “red carpet” standards. So, why do women continuously feel pressured to resemble such unrealistic body types? Since when are chicken legs and ribs ripping through your stomach such a sexy sight? True beauty is not what women see in the magazines and movies; it is the ability for women look in the mirror and claim they are absolutely ravishing and exquisite in their OWN EYES- not the eyes of any man, woman, or desperate soul looking to ridicule others not resembling them. It is imperative that women trust themselves and strut their stuff with confidence before the notion that a woman should be as thin as paper is transmitted from one generation to the next.

I get it; your stomach may have grown two pounds thicker after that Chick-Fil-A meal. Your shorts may seem too tight to button after devouring that large bowl of Chipotle. It happened. You ate it all. It tasted so great. Get over it. Do not dwell on the effects that actually eating food may have altered your body for a short amount of time. The media displays pictures of women with stomachs as flat as tables and thigh gaps that seem impossible to obtain and caption them as “body goals.” However, those girls are not you. They do not have the stress from school, the minimum wage pay that cannot afford healthy foods, and the little bit of free time you finally have that escapes you within a blink of an eye. Those women on the red carpet, on those fitness Pinterest pages, or on the body motivation Instagram pages are not real.

Toss out those magazines. Unfollow that unrealistic body goals page. Watch red carpet shows and focus on the amazing (and not so amazing) dresses the celebrities wear, not just their bodies. Finish that mouth-watering bowl of cheese dip without thinking what it is going to do with your body in the future. Look in the mirror, possess sky-high confidence, and tell yourself, “I am my own kind of beautiful.”