We see it on the streets, on television commercials and sticking out from the magazine rack in the checkout line at the local grocery store. The message is plastered on the sides of buses, on the faces of billboards and on the covers of teen magazines. A message that screams — in all of its seemingly subtle ways — you, too, can be beautiful… if you are thin.

Society today has an expectation of what is considered attractive, and there are hardly any signs of this ideal changing. The old definition of beauty seems to have been swept under the bony underbelly of the beauty and fashion industry. In its place, is an idolatry of bony and paper-thin.

Negative body image is an epidemic that has gradually worked its way from fashion runways to school hallways. The majority of beauty and fashion ads are aimed at younger audiences and the targeted advertising is ultimately leading to teen anorexia and bulimia. Whichever company makes the most convincing ad wins the most consumers, but also contributes most to the disease.

Inglemoor High senior Cathy Bronson believes the media has shaped itself to accommodate the idea that “thin” and “beautiful” must come as a package. As a result, Bronson says all consumers see are models who are “often not reflective of the actual state of people today.”

“Body image can be a very deceptive realm that we all are susceptible to,” Bronson said. “Just because I may not look like everyone else that we are subjected to in advertising commercially, does not mean that I need to become like them.”

Yet, gossip magazines are all over who’s too big and who’s too thin. Infomercials about diet supplements and workout training videos promise “the body you’ve always dreamed of,” a body that fits into the skewed perception of what is “beautiful.” A teenage girl walks into her classroom and compares herself to every other female in the room in order to feel confident. It’s like an endless cycle of mass hysteria.

“There’s a lot of unhappiness that stems from comparing yourself to what the media perceives as perfect,” Inglemoor junior Nicole Ochandarena said.

Leading beauty and fashion publications project negativity into the public without thinking of how it will affect anything other than their profits. It’s all about getting the readers to look at an image and think, “I want to look like that.”

Though some publications appear to be changing course and using models with a variety of body types, others are straggling far behind.

“I think magazines who have been around longer like Elle and Vogue have had a hard time transitioning,” Inglemoor senior Gabby Klein said. “They have an ideal that is not realistic anymore.”

That ideal being one of glamour, perfection and sickly skinniness.

How is mere skin and bones beautiful? How does the image of a skeletal model radiate sex appeal or conjure feelings of envy in young adults? Since when was the media given the power to define what beauty looks like? Let’s not forget that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not the media.

We feed off of tabloids, fitness magazines and buy into miracle workout programs for the wrong reasons, and look what we end up with: eating disorders, self-esteem issues and a falsified conception of beauty and normality.

Being born beautiful may not always be an option, but media discretion certainly is — perhaps it’s time we start using it.

Hillary Sanders is an Inglemoor High senior.