The Implications of Young People Being too Concerned about the Way They Look

One of the main concerns of young people is an assessment of their appearance: face, body, physical state. Many of them constantly ask themselves the question: "How do I fit the notions of beauty taken in my environment and in the modern world?» The degree of satisfaction of teenagers (especially girls) with their appearance depends on many other personality traits - cheerfulness, openness, sociability. Teens negatively evaluating their appearance are more prone to depression and anxiety. Apart from this, the teenager not only meticulously evaluates own appearance, but also is extremely sensitive to its assessment of other people. Comparing himself with his peers, he forms an idea of himself, creates an image of the physical ego. Appearance for a teenager is not just a reflection in the mirror. This is confidence and sociability, a pass in any company and peer status in the team. Attitude towards their appearance can be the basis of self-esteem in general. Samuel O. Salami (2011) is concerned “Self-esteem is the central formation of personality that defines his social adaptation and is a regulator of activity and behavior. Self-esteem for a young person is relevant to him or to his individual qualities.”

Self-esteem consists of knowledge about themselves and self-attitude. A person acquires self-knowledge through communication with other people in the family and in the society. But this knowledge can not remain neutral: with time they are painted in different emotions - both negative and positive. And these emotions can be strong and intense. As a matter of fact, girls have much lower self-esteem than boys. According to a survey that was made by Carol McGraw (2006) and was published in The News-Sentinel more than 60% of girls ar...

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...roblem is in the head. If a person accepts him/herself, doesn’t have problems with self-esteem and doesn’t think about the appearance too much, all the people around will think the same. The majority of the people, in fact, do not care about the way a person look. The main issue is to have the right attitude towards yourself.

Works Cited

Weisfeld, GE 1999, Evolutionary Principles of Human Adolescence, Basic Books, New York

Hunt, TJ, Thienhaus, O, Ellwood, A, 2008, "The mirror lies: body dysmorphic disorder". Am Fam Physician vol. 78, no. 2, pp. 217–222.

McGraw, C 2006, “Media, hormones, peer pressure do a number on girls’ confidence”, The News-Sentinel, vol. 65, no. 3.

Salami, SO, 2011, “Personality and Psychological Well-Being of Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Emotional Intelligence”, Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, vol. 39, no. 6