Society Expectations
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Within our Society Expectations have been developed of what the "typical" body should look like. This has developed normalization of sexualization in society and has formed this opinion on what the human body "standards" are.
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Overall, the oversexualization of the human body can take a huge toll on one’s mental health. This can happen in many ways, but most commonly appears in areas like self-confidence, eating/exercising habits, and social interactions. Someone’s self confidence can be shattered by unrealistic expectations set on them by their surroundings and societies, women are expected to be curvy in all the right places (i.e. big butt and big breasts) while still being under a certain weight (usually around 150lbs) and men are expected to be over 6 feet with chiseled, muscular bodies and larger genitals. It’s gotten to the point where women and men alike are being rejected for things they can’t control such as how their body distributes fat or how their bodies have grown over time. Another big issue is society’s expectations leading to disordered eating/over exercising and putting physical stress on your body so one can attempt to try and live up to the standards set for us by the media and our environments. This can get to the point of potentially deadly eating disorders, affecting a person both physically and mentally, due to the unrealistic standards of what our bodies should look like. Social interactions can also be affected by these standards, as people who fit them will be paid more attention, and as stated earlier, those who don’t can even be rejected due to the fact that they don’t follow these “guidelines” of what the human body should and should not look like. The unfortunate reality is that these expectations set by society, media, and even our peers can deteriorate one’s mental health in many forms, which could end up leading to depression, lack of confidence, eating disorders, and in extreme cases sometimes death and/or suicide. We need to work as a society to be more accepting of everyone as they are, no matter what their bodies look like, how big their genitals or sexualized body parts are, etc., we need to take people’s feelings into consideration when we set these unrealistic expectations because not everyone can and even should have to reach them. Everyone is beautiful in their own way and to protect our fellow humans' mental health and stability, we need to stop degrading others for something as superficial as what they or their bodies look like.