Appearance-Obsessed Society

I hate family gatherings (Hate is a strong word that I tend to not use, so I’ll explain why).

Every summer or winter, I go back to Korea; and if we are lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you view it), we get to gather the whole extended family for a huge dinner and maybe some dessert afterwards. We have a great time eating and catching up; I personally love being entertained by my auntie and uncle bickering over some minor family issue.

But what I hate about these family gatherings is the overwhelmingly frequent comments on appearance. I sometimes think that my extended family gathers for a competition of who-gets-to-detect-all-the-physical-changes-of-each-member-of-the-family.

“Oh, you’ve lost so much weight! You look great!”

“Look at the pimples on your face, ottoke… have you tried going to the dermatologist?”

“Have you seen how much weight ______ has gained? She must have eaten like a pig over the year tsk tsk.”

“I think the boys in our family are blessed with beautiful noses. How your nose looks is such an important thing. Imagine if they didn’t have the noses!” (yes, this is an actual comment made from one of my relatives).

I have to say that every time someone makes a comment like any of the above I try my best not to roll my eyes or to choke on the piece of kimchi that I’ve been munching on, especially when I see my own parents going with the flow.

You see, if you are all about self-compassion and body positivity, Korea might not exactly be the best place for you. The Korean beauty industry is ricocheting off the charts in its revenue, selling 10-steps skin care products, skin-whitening makeup, bright red lip tints, face rollers for getting that perfect V-shaped jawline. For graduation gifts, parents give their daughters a double-eyelid surgery; you heard me right--A FREAKING. DOUBLE EYELID. SURGERY. TO ALTER YOUR FACE. (Geez. Kudos to the Korean mothers for loving their children the way that they are).

All over, you see billboards with models that have small faces, skinny bodies, and perfect skin. The ideal body for a Kdrama star or a Kpop star is ridiculous and almost unattainable, and it sickens me to see so many boys and girls sacrificing their health and their energy to fold themselves into these standards. Girls would be obsessed with having a thigh gap, a waist the size of an A4 paper (this was seriously such a messed up trend), a v-lined face, an 11-shaped ab line.

And this definitely does not only apply to Korea. Instagram is a prime example of putting appearances on a pedestal--diet trends, pictures of abs, videos of toning up and slimming up your legs. So many ads still beautify their models; so many clothing stores still only use slimmer models. Many TV shows have “glow-up” makeovers where they try to “fix” a person’s problem by helping them diet, giving them an unsustainable workout routine and sad salads everyday (what Khloe Kardashian’s Revenge Body is all about). And yes, there is a growing avenue for body positivity; but there is so much more work to do to tip the whole scale over.

We see so many before and after weight loss pictures, and it’s so easy to equate that as success and as an achieved happiness. We think that when someone tones up and loses weight, “Oh, she must be doing well and be on top of her game! She’s so healthy!”

But what we don’t know is that many of these “healthy” behaviors and weight loss is tied to disordered eating and a terrible relationship with food that many people have. Such trends lead 50% of teenage girls and 30% of teenage boys to utilize laxatives, cigarettes, restriction, and vomiting. All of which will only decrease their metabolism to lead to regain later on or worse lead to a serious mental disorder which lead to critical health conditions and even death (anorexia has the highest mortality rate). What we don't know is that these skin care ads are making students insecure about their natural skin and making them feel like they need to pour out a fortune on makeup products to "beautify" their skins--to be acceptable in society.

"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishamurti

And all of that for what? All for some superficial standards that a sick society has created--mainly out of marketing purposes. What happened to complimenting a person on his/her compassion, enthusiasm, adventurous sides, vulnerability? Why has society put so much emphasis on looks when its actual effects are extremely minuscule, temporary, superficial?

How much more confidence and self-love would our children have if we complimented them on their internal characteristics and the way that they are? And how much more caring and connected would we be if we all started to gravitate towards inner work, our mental health instead of just our exterior looks?

I think it's something that all of us should think about, especially when we are constantly bombarded by these messages and also start accepting something clearly toxic as normal. And maybe next time we will be better prepared before complimenting someone just on their exterior looks without thinking about the consequences and end up fueling into society's messed up message about beauty and become a detriment to someone's self-perception and mental health.

If we all individually start to work towards that, maybe we will be able to gather around the dining table one day, not only iterate about someone's appearance, but actually bond together with the things that matter.