This article explores how women in modern society have come to perceive thinness as the ideal of beauty and the distorted body image issues that have resulted. It points out that media and social pressures reinforce this perception and are having a negative impact, especially on adolescents.
Every girl has probably thought at least once that she should lose weight. And we’ve all heard the response. “You don’t have anything to lose.” But underneath it all, there’s always dissatisfaction with ourselves and subconscious pressure to conform to societal standards. In reality, no one really feels the need to lose weight except us. So when did women in Korea come to think that they need to be skinny to be beautiful? This can be understood by looking back at how the standards of beauty in modern society have changed. Judging from Shin Yoon-bok’s “Beautiful Woman,” a beautiful woman in the past would have been a woman with a round forehead, crescent eyebrows, eyelidless eyes, a round nose, and red, small lips. However, over time, beauty standards have changed, especially with the introduction of Western culture with modernization, our aesthetic standards have begun to include Western elements, so the current beauty standards are Western. The beauty of 2013 is characterized by double-lidded eyes, a high, prominent nose, white skin, an egg-shaped face, a V-line, long, thin arms and legs, and a small waist.
These social norms have led to an increase in the number of girls who consider themselves fat even though they are of normal weight. This distorted body image problem is not just a preoccupation with appearance, but also has serious implications for self-esteem and mental health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2023 Youth Health Behavior Survey, 77.2% of 54,848 middle and high school students nationwide were of normal weight, but 27.9% of them had “body image distortion,” meaning they perceived themselves to be overweight. The prevalence of distortion among girls was 34.4%, more than 13% higher than boys (21.4%). These distorted perceptions lead to attempts to lose weight, with 41.6% of girls surveyed having tried to lose weight in the past month, and one in five of them having tried inappropriate methods, including fasting, taking diet pills without a doctor’s prescription, using laxatives and diuretics, vomiting after meals, and eating single foods.
It’s undeniable that modern society’s overexposure to media outlets has had a profound impact, especially on adolescents, who are more sensitive to their bodies and sensitive to multiple stimuli. They are often confused by the gap between the images they see in the media and reality. Since celebrities are always in the center of social issues, and since they are often only a few years older than themselves, teens can’t help but compare themselves to their idols. Especially nowadays, idols are everywhere, whether it’s in soap operas or entertainment, and even dominate the news on the internet. The makeup they use, the clothes they wear, the shoes they wear, and everything else they do is admired and imitated because they want to be like them. It’s not just about their appearance, it’s about their way of life and values. Just like watching Sailor Moon as a child and fantasizing that you are Sailor Moon, and then satisfying your desire to actually be that way by spouting lines like ‘In the name of justice, I will not forgive you,’ imitation has become a very natural trend.
‘Women are not born, they are made,’ Simone de Beauvoir once said. As she said, women are very sensitive to the way others see them, and they care a lot about their outward appearance. This trait makes them feel stronger social pressure and can lead to an excessive obsession with their appearance. This is why women are more likely to copy everything that celebrities do, which is why they are so much more popular than men. Adding to this is the group mentality. Korea is a country with a strong sense of group. It is very difficult for Koreans to say no when everyone is saying yes. Especially in a culture that emphasizes social unity, this pressure is even stronger. At some point, everyone starts to look up to someone and imitate them, thinking that if they don’t imitate anything, they will be outdated and not fit in with the group, and eventually everyone will imitate them. This is exactly what happened with dieting. Everyone is skinny. If you’re fat, you’re bullied even in elementary school. If you’re skinny, you’re expected to be thin, and if you have a little bit of weight, especially girls, they’re obsessed with it. This phenomenon is linked to self-esteem, and the more insecure you are about your appearance, the lower your self-evaluation. In addition, nowadays, the social climate is becoming more open about nudity, which means that women all over the country go on diets in the summer.
The social climate is a big part of the problem and the reason why women are so obsessed with dieting. Social standards and expectations have become stricter over time, and in order to meet them, women have become overly critical of their bodies. In the last decade, men have become obsessed with idols. What were the women watching from the sidelines thinking? If you look at flight attendants as a prime example, it wasn’t so long ago that height, weight, and everything was dictated, even if it’s much less regulated now. Of course, that’s still the case today, and it’s not going away. Especially in general companies. It’s still incomprehensible that you can’t get an interview if you don’t have makeup on, given how much influence you have over your appearance. It’s a gossipy society, but if it didn’t have a tail, we wouldn’t be talking about it at all.
There’s a good example from the West. There’s a cartoon movie by Disney called Merida and the Enchanted Forest. The main character, Merida, is a tomboyish, masculine girl, so to speak. She has no makeup, a furry personality, and a body like that of a normal girl. But, to our dismay, the toy version of her is something else entirely. The result is a completely different person, with a waist that’s barely recognizable as a child’s, voluptuous breasts, narrow shoulders, skinny arms and legs, and, most importantly, a thinning jawline, a high nose, and a pouty mouth. It’s one of the most disturbing examples of the distortion of female body image in modern society. In response, many parents in the United States sued Disney. They claimed that it was having a very bad effect on their children. They claimed that it changes the way girls think about their bodies and, more importantly, creates low self-esteem. It’s a valid and perfectly valid argument, because a prime example of the harm it causes is the reality in Korea.
The best way to solve the problem of middle and high school students in Korea, who are putting their lives at risk due to excessive dieting, is through the media. The media is a powerful tool of influence and can play an important role in changing social perceptions. Just as women are the most influenced by the media, it is also the one that can give us the clues to solve the problem of excessive dieting. Recently, the news has been covering this topic a lot in an attempt to raise awareness about the bad ways of dieting, and as someone who has read about it myself, I can tell you that it has worked. This can have a significant impact not only among teenagers, but also among adult women. It’s the same with idols. Many women in their twenties consider exercise to be an important part of their diet because they see their idols working out and staying healthy and fit through exercise. If the right balance between diet and health is promoted through various media, whether it”s news, articles, or programs, it will definitely change the social atmosphere and climate. In fact, one of the biggest results of this approach is that running shoes are becoming more popular instead of high heels, which are often worn to make legs look thinner.
