The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

My blog post yesterday about the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show inspired me to find some positive, uplifting messages for women. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a famous campaign promoting a positive self-image for women of all shapes and sizes. The goal is to make women feel beautiful no matter their age, weight, race or height. I did a little research at http://www.dove.us/Social-Mission/campaign-for-real-beauty.aspx to find out more about the campaign. According to the campaign’s website, the goal of the campaign is to make a “wider definition of beauty.” The website shares a statistic that I found shocking. The statistic was: “only 2% of women around the world would describe themselves as beautiful.” Only 2%?! Society’s definition of beauty is found to be unattainable by many women because they aren’t a size 2 and almost six feet tall. Standards about body size and beauty tend not to be created by the ordinary women whose lives they affect. Ordinary women compare themselves to these supermodels who portray an image of perfection. When these average women don’t measure up to the supermodels, they become dissatisfied with their bodies and have a skewed self body image. This body dysmorphia leads women to not accurately perceive their own body. They may see themselves as more overweight than they really are, which will lead to more negative consequences to the body. The Real Beauty Campaign is trying to fight that body dissatisfaction, and teach women to love and embrace who they are and what they look like. The campaign is aiming at all women regardless of age, but there was a specific fund created directed at young girls. A quote from the website states “As so many girls and young women develop low self-esteem from hang-ups about their looks, and consequently fail to reach their full potential in life, Dove® established the Dove® Self-Esteem Fund.” I believe this is such a good idea because the education about positive body images needs to start when you are young, so you can grow up loving yourself and who you are. The younger you are when you learn that you are beautiful, the lesser the impact society will have on your opinion of yourself. All women are beautiful in their own unique way. You should embrace your flaws, not be embarrassed by them. Most women do not look like the Victoria’s Secret Angels who walked the runway last night, but that does NOT mean they are not beautiful.