“My target is to have a figure like Alia Bhatt in the next 6 months”, “I am on GM diet for a week”, “How do celebrities have such flawless skin? I wish I had skin like them”, etc. Have we ever come across such sentences from our friends, cousins, or relatives? Obvious answer is yes. This is the effect of fashion magazines on an individual.

Lets visualize the table of content of a fashion magzine. It has –

A cover story of a celebrity

Latest fashion trends (includes advertisement of clothes, cosmetics, etc.)

Planet beauty column including beauty tips

Q & A section of a celebrity, sometimes also related to queries regarding fashion and beauty tips that common people have

Section on awards that happened recently with celebrities pictures

Sometimes it also contains horoscope

By looking at the rough table of content it doesn’t look like it can cause low self-esteem for an individual. It is providing us beauty tips, clarifying our queries through Q & A, and also keeping us updated with what is happening in the fashion industry. So what is not right about it?

Yes, table of content does look attractive but there are hidden problems in it. Fashion magazines are mainly purchased by age group of 18 to 24, which is their target audience. Once we start reading it, we come across a lot of pictures of celebrities for different events and that’s when the envy begins. We admire the way they are dressed, their flawless skin, their slim body, and the fame and attention that they have achieved. This becomes the starting point.

Once we have had a good look at the magazine, we stand in front of a mirror and look at ourselves; the way we look, the way we dress on a daily basis, the body weight, the career path where we are on, etc. This doesn’t end there. Once we are emphasizing on our flaws, we compare it with the celebrities in magazines and realize that we are nowhere close to them. We do not see that the celebrity that we are attracted with in the fashion magazine has probably invested 3-4 hours to great ready before the photo shoot, probably is living on fruits in order to maintain her slim body, or probably sacrificing her personal space in order to earn fame. Rather we dig further in the magazines for solutions on –

How to lose weight?

How to beautify ourselves?

Where to purchase designer clothes from? etc.

We feel that fashion magazines help us in that front but we are wrong. It is just advertising its own product and we just fall in their trap. By looking for solutions like these, we assure ourselves that we are not happy with what we are. According to me that’s what is called low self-esteem. It further leads to buying beauty products, designer clothes, etc. It affects our finances and also our skin. Nowadays young boys and girls live on fruits so that they do not become fat. Instead of becoming advantageous it turns disadvantageous because it ultimately hampers our health.

Thus, adopting a different lifestyle from what we are living right now is not bad but it should not be at the cost of completely forgetting our own self and becoming a different individual all together. We should be happy with the body that we have been gifted with and not become a prey of fashion magazines. It will destroy our health, peach of mind, and most importantly our self –esteem.