ProfessorLayton said:
My question is why are teenage girls like that? I want serious discussion here, not "Because you touch yourself at night."
I really think that it's the media. Constantly being shown touched up pictures of models can make people start comparing themselves to other people and are always looking for the negatives. What do you think?
Honestly, I'm going through a similar issue myself with a girl I like where she is out-right determined that she is ugly and fat and so on. I've tried all sorts to convince her she's beautiful and while she is technically obese, she is fine the way she is. I then sort of shrugged my shoulders, told her to not go below 8 stone in weight if she does lose weight and I'd be there if she needs help.
Honestly, it's probably due to media and the built in concept society that everyone must be thin. Granted, this is due to health because if you're over-weight then you have a greater risk of death, but there are people who go over the top. However, because they're splashed across media for one reason or another, girls not only seek to become that thin, they bully others who aren't as thin to make up for the insecurity that they're not thin enough to fall over in a strong wind.
I think it boils down to insecurity though. We all have insecurities about our selves. Let it be that we think we're dumb, or that we can't write good stories, or that we're absolutely ugly as hell. It's that for all the people who think they're ugly as hell (and that's the most popular one since society is increasingly materialistic), they find that losing weight is the easiest thing to do. No matter what people say to them, like people love them the way they are and they really don't want them to change, they're still trapped into a depressive view of themselves. I think girls tend to be more vain than boys because the media and stereotypes portray that girls should be pretty. However, since there's no such thing as "pretty" in an objective sense, they look subjectively at other people and attempt to copy characteristics they like about them. Which, because the easiness of losing weight compared to other things, involves copying weight. So they're not happy being "husky" or large, but still the correct weight, they must be thin. They must be on the lower scale of the correct weight and if they dip into under-weight, why should they care?
Honestly, it's reasons like this why I'm interested in things like conformity, just because without the need to conform we may be better off. Sure conformity is a requirement to an extent, but it's materialistic conformity that should just jump off a cliff. The conformity that makes us buy certain types of clothes or certain types of goods for our apartment not because they're practical but just because they look good. Conformity makes some people throw up into a toilet daily just so they can conform easier. Conformity makes some people spend £30,000+ just so they can have a different nose or a different lips, who cares if they look generally worse afterwards. Conformity makes people slice their wrists open on a daily basis because they are frustrated on being unable to conform completely and slicing themselves is the most conformist way to relieve themselves from the pains of life.
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