Acosta 1
Lauren Acosta
Mr. Kaminski
English 10
December 12, 2014
Pressure to be Perfect
Is anyone really perfect? What exactly is ‘perfect’? Being skinny? Being curvy?
Being yourself? Everyone has a different definition of ‘perfect,’ but society has it’s own: skinny, to the point you look ill. Celebrities, media, and supermodels all put so much pressure on young women to be like this.
Bethenny Frankel is just one of the many women who have been accused of promoting an unhealthy body image. This American reality television personality, talk show host, author, and entrepreneur is very pretty, yet it is quite easy to see every bone in her body. When Bethenny posted a picture on Instagram proudly wearing her four­year­old daughter’s Pj’s, the ‘skinny girl’ faced a massive backlash.
The first 10 years of a girl’s life is spent playing with Barbies, and the next 10 years are spent trying to look like one. The Barbie doll is advertised to teach young girls to model these images in their lives. The doll is stated to be 5’9 and weigh 110 lbs, which is 35 lbs below healthy weight. Less self­esteem, worse body image, and stronger desire to be thin from playing with dolls.
Magazines and TV are the bane of my life, and not because I read page after page about the new foolproof diet or watch every commercial or tv program about being

Acosta 2 a size 2. No. The reason I can no longer stand magazines or tv is because of my friend.
My friend is addicted to diet pills and no longer has energy to do anything. Last January she went on a diet. She started off just eating strictly healthy and exercising a lot. She dropped from 160 lbs to 135 lbs. Later in March she started taking laxatives on top of all the strict eating and exercising. She went from a size 9/10 to a size 1/2. She now weighs 110 lbs and is addicted to all sorts of dieting pills. 1 in every 3 articles in teen girl magazines include a focus on appearance (“Teen Health and the Media”), and 50% of