It is no question that our culture’s obsession with beauty has become greater and greater starting at such a young age, girls see pictures of what they should look like,and they are left feel insignificant and ugly. Our culture’s obsession with beauty just keeps getting uglier.

What the standard seems to miss is that everyone is different, most people can’t fit into the cookie cutter look that is forced to the public eye. Our culture puts our value on what we look like. Studies have shown us that because of media influence, girls at as young as nine years old don’t feel like they are good enough.

According to National Institute on Media and Family via the University of Washington, in a survey taken by girls nine to 10 years old, 40 percent of them have tried to lose weight and by “age thirteen, 53 percent of American girls are unhappy with their bodies. This grows to 78 percent by the time girls reach 17.”

Young girls and teens have become so fixated on outward appearance that they try to lose weight instead of focusing on being a nine-year-old. This cycle just continues into high school, when all of those pressures are 100 times worse. Personally, I think people would like high school a lot more if they didn’t have to worry about being popular or being chased by the guys.

Beauty itself should be found in much more than looking exactly like the “perfect celebrity.” We neglect to realize that the little things make us just as beautiful and way more unique than looking the same as everyone else does. People will notice what is uniquely attributed to you, not the designer makeup you use because some famous person told you that you had to have it!

More importantly, your beauty is found within. Although your outward beauty may be the first thing that’s seen, what’s on the inside is what lasts. Your kindness and love will be what keeps someone around, not because of the way you look.

Audrey Hepburn once said, “The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a Woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she knows.”

Girls and women should be able to rest in the fact that their beauty comes from who they are as a person, not by what everyone tells them they should be. Beauty doesn’t have to be a pain once you realize that who you are is what makes you beautiful.

Although there are a lot of negative body image concepts floating around in front of our eyes, there are a few celebrity women who have made it their goal to break down our beauty norms. Women like Jennifer Lawrence, Adele, Kelly Clarkson have spoken against our norms and spoken against the use of Photoshop so that models and celebrities can achieve that perfect look that they even can’t adhere to.

It may be a hard concept to understand, given our constant feed of media telling us otherwise, but your beauty comes from within and nobody can take that away from you. It’s our job to help others see how beautiful they are and show them that they don’t need our culture’s representation of beauty in order to let their lights shine.