Appreciating natural beauty

Youth and beauty seem to be the focal point of today’s society. We are constantly being fed images telling us to look younger and sexier. Everywhere we look, there are commercials and advertisements promoting an ideal image, which for most is impossible to attain.

But what about those generations before us who have been shunned by the beauty industry? What negative impact is our society’s growing fixation with youth and beauty having on our parents and our grandparents?

“Boomers are trying to look and even act younger than their natural years,” says Warren Brown, a 37-year-old History and Media Studies teacher at the TanenbaumCHAT Kimel Family Campus in Toronto. “Plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures have become a standard practice and a multi-billion dollar industry.”

However, amidst the infatuation with being young and beautiful is a diamond in the rough. The Dove Pro-Age advertisements offer some hope to aging women—and men—who are sick and tired of looking at rail-thin teenage girls. The ads feature elderly women who are nude and completely un-retouched.

With phrases like “Does beauty have an age limit?” the viewer of the ads is asked to reflect upon the outrageously biased beauty industry.

Netta Greenblatt is a 52-year-old woman who has seen the campaign.

“It is long overdue that a beauty product manufacturer proudly promotes their products to the over-50 crowd. Dove has succeeded in entering new territory that the beauty industry has never explored,” she says.

What impact is society’s growing obsession with youth and beauty having on today’s youth?

“The images they are continually being exposed to can lead to an unhealthy generation, both physically and emotionally,” says Brown.

Children are always told to respect their elders. When will the wider beauty industry be held to same standard?

Josh Greenblatt
Junior Journalist

Josh Greenblatt is a Gr. 12 student at TanenbaumCHAT Kimel Family Campus.

Click here to read this and other Junior Journalist articles.

Free The Children is the largest network of children helping children through education in the world, with more than one million youth involved in our innovative education and development programs in 45 countries. Founded by international child rights activist Craig Kielburger, Free The Children has an established track-record of success, with three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize and partnerships with the United Nations and Oprah’s Angel Network.