When is it appropriate to comment on someone else's appearance? Is it ever appropriate? Well yeah, if you're telling someone about something they can fix in 10 seconds like if they have something caught in their teeth, have some schmutz on their face, or a leaf in their hair, need to untuck their skirt from their underwear, the kinds of things they can fix easily. But what about the things that they can’t fix easily, or don’t even necessarily want to fix? Things like weight, teeth, how often they smile, their hair, their nose, eye bags, body hair, facial hair, body proportions, skin conditions, clothing choice, whether or not they wear makeup, the list goes on and on. Our society has put so much emphasis on appearances that we believe we have the right to comment on the looks of another. Whether it is meant as a criticism, friendly teasing, or just an observation, we are all guilty of commenting on people’s appearances. I know I most certainly am.
Commenting on a person’s appearance is not always a bad thing when it is out of concern. There are situations where our outside reflects the health of our inside, and health should always be the number one priority. However, in cases such as these, there is a way of kindly phrasing your concern. Too often a comment on someone’s appearance comes off as shaming; first, because people can be tactless, and second because of the amount of shaming that occurs daily about every aspect of a person’s appearance. I have seen plenty of stranger's shame the looks of others who were thin, or overweight, or dressed a certain way, and I wondered if the person doing the shaming thought they were being helpful. And it is not just strangers that take part in shaming.
A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, gave me her consent to speak about her experience being shamed by someone close to her. She told me of how her mother told her “you’re fat, go lose weight,” and said her hair was thinning. My friend allowed me to speak about this because she thinks it is important that people know there are things we shouldn't say, but if you need to say it, you can do it without being hurtful. Something she said was, “If I can’t fix it in 10 seconds, don’t say anything to me.” She has been working to lose weight, and she knows her hair is thinning; she has gone to a doctor about it. If her mother had sensitively commented on these things out of concern, my friend would not have been sad, and their relationship would not be strained as it is now. With society and the media constantly setting beauty standards for every single part of our bodies, it is not as if we are unaware of our own “flaws.” For many of us, it is a dominant part of our lives. We know what we look like, so it’s not as if we need comments from others about how we look.
When commenting on a person’s appearance, it is only okay to do so if you are concerned for the person’s health, and if you know them personally because you don't know what is going on in a person's life, and it is not ok to make dramatic assumptions about a person based on how they look, or to let them know about something small that they can change in 10 seconds. This should be done as sensitively as possible. Perhaps also if it is just friendly joking between friends that are both aware that it is not serious. When it comes to the things I listed earlier, it is important to remember that not only is changing those things a process, and often times difficult, but it is a personal choice; and several of them do not reflect health at all. It is difficult to hold back comments when you are concerned for someone; that is understandable. But to nitpick consistently at someone’s appearance, whether you know them or not, or whether it is out of concern or not, is only going to make that person feel bad about themselves, it is not going to motivate them to change anything. There is a difference between concern and criticism. Too often it becomes about looks, and too often this world says “you’d be pretty if…” Things like this are why people develop eating disorders, and it can cause stress and anxiety and can make a person afraid of being themselves and living their life because they worry they are not good enough.
I personally have had my weight, my proportions, my makeup or lack thereof, my clothes, my hair, and my skin commented on; sometimes out of concern and not tactfully, sometimes as a criticism, and sometimes as if I was nothing but my body. I have struggled with insecurities about the way I look my whole life. I've been called a tease for wearing revealing clothing. I don't smile with my teeth in pictures because I've been told they need to be fixed. I have fussed over my hair to the point of severe damage because people have said it's dry and frizzy. I have been called "the friend with the skin condition" by a friend's father because of how rosy my cheeks are. I once had a little boy say to me "you know you're kinda fat." I have been called bony and too thin and asked out of nowhere if I was anorexic/bulimic. I've been told that I wear too much makeup, sometimes when I wasn't wearing any at all. I've been told that I could stand to try some makeup. I have had comments made on my beauty marks and variations in my skin tone. When I have expressed that I felt ugly, someone said to me "haven't you ever heard of the ugly duckling," as if that is a consolation. All of these things have to lead me to a point where It's incredibly hard to think of myself as beautiful. I feel like no matter what I do it will never be good enough, and I have hidden in a lot of ways for a long time.
Even when people in my life tell me how beautiful they think I am it's hard to believe them. They tell me I'm stupid for being insecure, and they can't believe it, but what has to be understood is that my insecurities have been built up over years of having my looks ridiculed by other people and by the media. I have stared at pictures of models in magazines and hated myself for not looking like them despite the fact that I know the women in those photos aren't realistic. I have seen women on TV and thought I was hideous because I was different from them. You can literally name any part of me on the outside, and at some point in my life, I have been insecure about it. I have been told before “you’d be pretty if…” Why can’t I be pretty no matter what I look like, and if I change something then I change it, and it has no bearing on whether or not I am pretty? Because it certainly has no bearing on whether or not I am a good person. I have been clawing my way up from the depths of my insecurities for the majority of my life, and though I am getting there, I have still not made it to the top; and the same goes for a lot of people. And we say that confidence is the most beautiful thing about a person but people are not always going to be confident. Loving and accepting yourself is one of the hardest battles a person will ever fight, and it is not anyone's place to make that battle harder to win. We all make judgments about other people, but that doesn't make it okay.
Whoever you are, know that you are beautiful. Whether you feel like it or not; you are beautiful. Looking a certain way or being insecure about something will never change that. Stay healthy, stay happy, stay beautiful.
