Oh the joys of being a teenager in today's day and age. There are just so many things that go on with a teenager and their brains that it is hard to pin point one thing. From trying to do good in school,to trying to be popular, being "adults", figuring out who you are and many more things that are on a teenagers priority list.
Our culture puts a lot of pressure on teenagers especially with the perfect image that is put out in front of teenagers. All the girls look up to Victoria Secret models and want to be like them and desire a body like them where as boys look at professional athletes, models and actors as role models. In the magazines they see a perfect face and body with absolute no flaws and who wouldn't want to be perfect? The problem lies when teenagers ignore to look at the real picture and choose to admire the photo shopped world of media. Due to this perfect image girls start to have low self esteem and they start to dislike their bodies and themselves. In order to be like that model some girls unfortunately take extreme measures like plastic surgery, fad dieting, starving themselves and many more things.
With this obsession girls face other problems as well. They want to feel loved, wanted, pretty and cared for. There is nothing wrong with that but girls end up doing things that put them in uncomfortable situations. They get peer pressured into drugs, sex or get depressed. Emotions run strong as a teenager anyways and with the pressure on kids now a days is only making things worse.
I remember looking at those magazines and sometime wanting to be that pretty. As a teenager I always compared myself to other kids which did not help my situation. I was lucky enough to go to a school with moderate amount of kids and it was easier to make friends. I have changed four different high schools in two different cities and i know how hard it is to start over. I feel like in schools that have more kids and in bigger cities it is much harder to survive. There are more chances of being bullied, teased or getting in trouble. I can only imagine how high school would be now. At that age it feels like the most important thing in life and how everything matters so much. Today I know better and I realize how really important was high school. I was always told to never take things to seriously in high school, as no one would care after high school and the actual world is a totally different place. I now know how true it is.
These are definitely some of the devastating results of the impact of our society on young developing minds. Which makes me think back to last weeks articles on the importance of a stable and supportive parent/guardian/teacher. Because of the issues you have listed, it is crucial that teenagers have access to adults that can inform them of the impact of society, peer pressure and the changes they are going through.
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy how important things used to be in high school and now that you are out none of it seems to matter. Most of the people i was friends with in high school I do not ever see. However I do have a hand full of friends that I met in high school that I see on a regular basis but it no where near the amount i talked to while in high school. For my high school i really did not think I got to know my class mates really well until senior year at events like graduation night where you got to hang out with all your class from just your class i wish they did this earlier because i feel like it would build better relationships.
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