Today's media portrays thin women as the ideal and promotes unhealthy beauty standards. Studies show that thinner women earn more and are viewed as more attractive and hirable. However, most images are photoshopped and don't reflect reality. Our culture also promotes white beauty ideals, leading women of color to use skin lightening creams or hair relaxers despite health risks. Pursuing beauty through cosmetics, tanning, and plastic surgery also often involves health risks like cancer and addiction in order to achieve unrealistic standards.

2. • Today’s media shows women as sex objects.
• We see models in a size double zero and men
expect us to look like that too!
• “Recent studies have shown that thin women
earn more on average-about $16,000 a year more,
in one study-than their average size
counterparts”. – The Boston Women’s Health
Book Collective.
• “Another study found that 57 percent of hiring
managers agreed that qualified but unattractive
candidates are likely to have a harder time landing
a job, and 61 percent of managers (most of them
being men) said it would be an advantage for a
woman to wear clothing showing off her figure at
work”. – The Boston Women’s Health Book
Collective.
• Most photographs we see of models are
extremely air brushed and photo shopped to look
perfect.

3. • Our culture has a white ideal mentality.
• African American women have been bleaching
their skin and straightening their hair since the
1850’s
• Skin bleaching creams are widely available for
African American women. These products lighten
their complexion, but they use harmful products
such as mercury, that block melanin to give the
skin pigmentation.
• Women of color often use hair
extensions, wigs, or hair relaxers to achieve a
more ideal appearance.
• “Many of the products can contain significant
amounts of carcinogens and allergens such as
formaldehyde. The choice for many of us to “go
natural” would seem to present a simple
solution, but it is a testimony to the embedded
white beauty ideals that the choice is fraught
with anxiety”. –The Boston Women’s Health Book
Collective.

4. • “Worldwide sales of fragrances, cosmetics, and
toiletries have reached $330 billion per year, with
the ten biggest companies accounting for more than
half of all sales”. –Boston Women’s Health Book
Collective.
• Commercials on TV are constantly showing us how
to make our eyelashes longer, our hair shinier, our
lips fuller, our skin clearer, and more.
• The majority of beauty products are marketed
towards women.
• “The pursuit of beauty is often fraught with health
and safety risks – some that are known and others
that we’re still discovering. When blood and urine
samples from twenty teenage girls from across the
country were tested, they found carcinogens like
formaldehyde and neurotoxins like lead are often
found in trace amounts in cosmetics and personal
care items”.- Boston Women’s Health Book
Collective.

5. • Indoor tanning as become extremely popular,
but puts our bodies at a high risk for skin
cancer.
• “A recent study of college students found that
among those who had repeatedly used
tanning beds, approximately one-third met
an addiction standard, meaning they
exhibited dependency the same way others
are dependent on alcohol and drugs”. – The
Boston Women’s Health Book Collective.
• Going tanning on a regular basis slowly
damages our skin over time, in older age skin
will become leathery, wrinkly, and spotty. The
picture you see of the woman’s face is what
melanoma skin cancer can look like.

6. • In 2010 alone there were more than 13
million cosmetic surgeries performed in
the United States
• “Of the more than 1.5 million surgical
procedures considered more
invasive, breast augmentation (296,000)
topped the list, followed by nose
reshaping (252,000), eyelid surgery
(209,000), liposuction (203,000), and
tummy tucks (116,000).” – The Boston
Women’s Health Book Collective.
• It doesn’t matter if your not rich and
famous, even middle class women are
getting plastic surgery. Black market
surgeons perform cheap surgery's for
women that can’t afford to go to the
Hollywood doctors. These procedures
can be high risk for infection and other
problems.

7. -The picture below is from a Dove
• “41 percent of the US women are larger
than a size 14, and only 10% of retailers advertisement. It is one of few ad
cater to them. campaigns that show beautiful
• The average American woman weighs powerful women of all shapes, colors,
165lbs. and sizes.
• Women’s body parts such as the breasts
are made up of fat. We as women need
more body fat than men so that we can
carry a child.
• Diet foods are extremely expensive, not
all of us can afford to eat that way,
therefore the processed food companies
take advantage of that and reduce prices
on less healthy foods.
• “When we are counting calories, over
exercising in rote, uninspired ways,
and/or spending so much mental energy
on self-criticism, we forget what we
used to enjoy doing, such as spending
time with friends or pursuing our
passions”. –The Boston Women’s Health
Book Collective.