Dear American Culture, 


     Big is beautiful too! Body image has become so distorted in our society due to the media images of "beauty." All around us are photographs of “beautiful” models: an image that as females we are supposed to emulate. They are a picture of unhealthily skinny women with perfect hair and a style of clothing that would only fit someone who is shaped like a stick. In “The Beauty Myth,” Naomi Wolf states “thirty three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal.” By being constantly bombarded with images of models, who, apart from being unnaturally skinny, are often airbrushed to look even thinner, American women have an unhealthy idea of what it means to be beautiful. A woman who is at a healthy, beautiful weight is trained to believe that she is not thin enough if her legs are not stick thin and her stomach is not perfectly flat.


     Historically, the larger the person, the more beautiful they were. This was due to the socio-economic belief that the larger you were the more money you had. This just goes to show that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The thing our culture needs to realize is that real people are beautiful. It is rare that a real person measures up to the Photoshopped bodies that our culture immortalizes through the media. 


     Whether you are a female who actually has curves or a man who is not built of sheer muscle, you are a real person and that in itself is beautiful. 


   

Dear American Culture,

     It is okay to be alone. Please stop trying to push the idea that relationships are the most important thing in a young person's life. There are more important things than finding a soul mate at a young age. One of these things is finding yourself. It is so common in popular television shows, teen books, and movies, for high school and college students to place all of their attention on love. The pressure is especially placed upon young girls. It is so rare to find a story line involving a strong young woman who places her focus upon a career or receiving an education without her either losing her identity to a man or being depicted as miserable. The same goes for young men. In many ways, without being in a steady relationship, men are portrayed in a negative light. They are looked at as players and jerks or as "losers" who will never see a woman naked.

     Instead of being taught to find another, as a nation we should be taught to find ourselves. It is no secret that divorce rates in this country are skyrocketing. We feel the pressure to find someone to spend the rest of our lives with at a young age, and rush into things quicker than we should. What we should do is find out what we love to do and where we love to be. Once we have figured out these things, and if we continue to do them, eventually we will find someone who loves similar things and loves us for who we are. The best advice anyone has ever given me is "Find what you love to do and you will find someone who you love and who loves you back."

     On that note, go out and do something you love. Stop worrying about being lonely. You have the rest of your life ahead of you to find your love.