Today’s society has set so many standards for the word “beautiful” that there are many people, both men and women, that don’t see themselves as beautiful. This standard is set even higher in the world of women. Tall and skinny women with flawless skin plaster the pages of magazines, runways, and television commercials. Having these women everywhere you look lowers the self-esteem of girls who don’t fit these criteria. While programs like I Am B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. help young girls recover their self-esteem, there are many who do not have this kind of program that shows that beauty comes in every shape and size.

There are some girls who never heard their mothers tell them how beautiful they are. There are even some whose mothers call them “ugly” and how “no one will ever want them”. These words underlie the problem of girls who grow up with low self-esteem. That they hear these words day in and day out for years on end. On top of having the mindset of not being beautiful drilled into their heads, media images of models everywhere in sight only make matters worse.

When girls and young women who do not fit the skinny norm see models as role models, they can obsess about looking like a Barbie doll. For example, Valeria Lukyanova looked like your average blonde Russian woman. After hundreds of thousands of dollars and multiple plastic surgeries later, Lukyanova is now more commonly known as the “Human Barbie." An extreme measure like this suggest someone who hardly has any self-esteem and wants to fit in to the norms of society. What has become ordinary in the world is not real beauty. Society has set this bar so high that women feel like they have no choice but to take extreme measures – whether it is by losing weight or going under the knife – in order to feel like society will accept them.

Being a model or a “living Barbie” will not fulfill the hole of knowing you are beautiful. You are beautiful no matter how tall you are, how much you weigh, or how many times you missed out on being told how beautiful you are. Everyone is born beautiful. Everyone should beautiful, regardless of society's unrealistic standards. I admit that models are beautiful; I am not skinny-shaming anyone. Beauty is not defined by how you look on the outside. It is defined by how you look on the inside. It doesn’t matter what color your hair or eyes are, what size your clothes are, or how tall you are. Personality, being able to be you, and expressing yourself is what real beauty looks like.