Exploring the Mental Conflict:
Butterfinger or Beauty?
You cannot have both: the butterfinger and the beauty, that is.
The grocery store is open to the public. Women of all different ethnicities, sizes, social classes, and ages go to the grocery store; it is a neutral place. So why does the grocery store checkout aisle, a space of less than three feet wide, produce an incredible state of mental conflict for many women who dare to enter?
With the candy bars on the left and the beauty magazines on the right, the customer must decide which is more important to her: eating or beauty?
Suppose the woman chooses the beauty magazine instead of the candy. At home, as she flips through the glossy pages of the magazine, many of the models appear sun-kissed, healthy, and flawless, thanks to airbrush technology. They are also dangerously underweight. Ideals of femininity and beauty cover every page as models objectify themselves as subjects of the male gaze. The self-improvement tips and suggestion pages include low-calorie and nutrient-deprived recipes and fast and easy workout plans so that the reader can supposedly attain the bodies of the magazine models. The magazines, even health and fitness magazines, make unhealthy choices and unhealthy ideals seem normal, attainable, and desirable.
It is no wonder that numerous studies have shown that beauty magazines promote low self-esteem. A more controlled and accurate study, done by Ohio State University, suggests even scarier findings. The study found that many women's self-esteem actually rose immediately after viewing the magazines, but this positive effect was short-lived. The researchers explain that when reading these magazines, women feel optimistic about their ability to alter their appearance. However, "when women get short-term encouragement and hope, they set up unrealistic expectations. When they fail to achieve the ideal, they return again to the same types of magazines for additional help." This results in a downward spiral for the women but an increase in returning customers and profit for the beauty magazine industry. The researchers add that if magazines encouraged healthy food choices, physical activity, and self-satisfaction, while also embracing all sizes and body types, magazine readers could very well experience a rise in self-esteem and overall happiness.
What if, instead of buying the beauty magazine, the woman chooses the candy bar? Most likely, she feels an enormous amount of guilt and self-hatred. In today's society, self-deprivation and self-hate are the norm. If a woman gives in to her primal urge to actually eat and eat something that tastes good, she is not doing something right. After she finishes the candy bar, she will usually do one of three things. She will either go work out excessively until she no longer feels guilty, she will deprive herself from food later in the day to make up for her binge, or she will simply loathe herself. In all three cases, her self-esteem diminishes and her overall health declines, leaving her with the simple self promise to never again grab the candy bar.
Whether the woman chooses the beauty magazine or the Butterfinger, her self-esteem is still at risk. The mental conflict, most likely, will ensue no matter what. She will spend time hating herself, promising herself to be better, and attempting to "fix" whatever she perceives the problem to be. It is a lose-lose situation that sets up every woman for failure. It produces not only a state of mental conflict in the checkout aisle, but also a state of mental conflict and self-deprication after leaving the grocery store. It sets women up to fail. They will fail to resist the primal urge to eat, they will fail to live up to the unattainable beauty standards of today's society, and they will fail to love and appreciate their bodies for all they are capable of.
They will fail.
Suppose the woman chooses the beauty magazine instead of the candy. At home, as she flips through the glossy pages of the magazine, many of the models appear sun-kissed, healthy, and flawless, thanks to airbrush technology. They are also dangerously underweight. Ideals of femininity and beauty cover every page as models objectify themselves as subjects of the male gaze. The self-improvement tips and suggestion pages include low-calorie and nutrient-deprived recipes and fast and easy workout plans so that the reader can supposedly attain the bodies of the magazine models. The magazines, even health and fitness magazines, make unhealthy choices and unhealthy ideals seem normal, attainable, and desirable.
It is no wonder that numerous studies have shown that beauty magazines promote low self-esteem. A more controlled and accurate study, done by Ohio State University, suggests even scarier findings. The study found that many women's self-esteem actually rose immediately after viewing the magazines, but this positive effect was short-lived. The researchers explain that when reading these magazines, women feel optimistic about their ability to alter their appearance. However, "when women get short-term encouragement and hope, they set up unrealistic expectations. When they fail to achieve the ideal, they return again to the same types of magazines for additional help." This results in a downward spiral for the women but an increase in returning customers and profit for the beauty magazine industry. The researchers add that if magazines encouraged healthy food choices, physical activity, and self-satisfaction, while also embracing all sizes and body types, magazine readers could very well experience a rise in self-esteem and overall happiness.
What if, instead of buying the beauty magazine, the woman chooses the candy bar? Most likely, she feels an enormous amount of guilt and self-hatred. In today's society, self-deprivation and self-hate are the norm. If a woman gives in to her primal urge to actually eat and eat something that tastes good, she is not doing something right. After she finishes the candy bar, she will usually do one of three things. She will either go work out excessively until she no longer feels guilty, she will deprive herself from food later in the day to make up for her binge, or she will simply loathe herself. In all three cases, her self-esteem diminishes and her overall health declines, leaving her with the simple self promise to never again grab the candy bar.
Whether the woman chooses the beauty magazine or the Butterfinger, her self-esteem is still at risk. The mental conflict, most likely, will ensue no matter what. She will spend time hating herself, promising herself to be better, and attempting to "fix" whatever she perceives the problem to be. It is a lose-lose situation that sets up every woman for failure. It produces not only a state of mental conflict in the checkout aisle, but also a state of mental conflict and self-deprication after leaving the grocery store. It sets women up to fail. They will fail to resist the primal urge to eat, they will fail to live up to the unattainable beauty standards of today's society, and they will fail to love and appreciate their bodies for all they are capable of.
They will fail.