Who is aesthetically beautiful?
A perfectly chiseled woman; plump breasts, hour-glass figure, pleasant facial features, silken skin and shiny raven hair. . . who’s had liposuction, breast augmentation, and tattooed eyebrows; who dyes her hair to hide ashen gray roots; wears padded butt cheeks; and pays for astronomically expensive laser treatments to reveal wrinkle free flesh?
A Miss America beauty; vomiting in hiddenness in order to display perfectly sculpted abs and upper arms for the camera. . . but is constantly tormented by voices that her skin is too dark and her thighs are too thick?
A gorgeous, tanned surfer with blond curls blowing in the wind and an athletic prowess fit for the Olympics. . .yet thinks she’s ugly because she’s been described as bulky and flat chested by magazine editors?
The stunning red-haired beauty. . . suffering in silence with dark secrets encased in a world of abuse; mentally tormented by the perpetrator’s lies that she’s a pile of sh*t?
The young woman with an amazing health recovery. . .coerced to wear make-up that she’s allergic to in order to conceal her tattoos for the cameras?
The track star with a deformed leg and radically scarred face as the result of an auto accident when she was three. . . but has healed from multiple surgeries and overcome all obstacles in order to win race competitions?
The new Mom with dark circles under her eyes, messy bun, and a poochy abdomen. . . yet is learning the demanding art of breastfeeding around the clock, because she knows another human is now totally dependent on her milk supply?
The young woman in a wheelchair; born into a world of Spinal Muscular Atrophy . . . but has developed into a beautiful wordsmith whose writings touch the deepest places of the human heart?
The gorgeous teen from Appalachia who’s never been to a dentist and has a mouthful of crooked, decaying teeth. . .yet, she can sing melodies that sound as if an angel from heaven were echoing throughout the mountain tops?
The overweight woman, hiding in a cloak of shame, who no longer feels safe to be in public due to the awkward stares and rude comments. . . who hasn’t left her house in three years, ever since she learned to order groceries online?
The white-haired great-grandmother convalescing in a nursing home, unable to recall her name. . .yet she raised six children as a single mother and still has a twinkle in her eye when her children and grandchildren come to visit.
Or the pubescent girl who boys called “Moose” in junior high. . . who has now grown into a young woman with infantile breasts and no hips due to years of self-enforced malnutrition; who starved herself in order to be accepted by her peers and fit into a skinny pair of jeans?
What is beauty?
Oxford Dictionary says it’s a combination of qualities such as shape, color, and form that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially sight.
Google says it’s the quality of being pleasing and attractive, especially to look at.
The scriptures say it’s fleeting.
But could a person’s steadfast and resilient spirit, or kind and generous heart make them beautiful, attractive, and pleasant to look at?. . .pleasant to be around?
How did the women of the Renaissance in Italy view beauty? What were their standards—which notably were debated by men throughout the 15th-17th centuries.
Upon further research . . .interestingly, it was the men who ultimately dictated what a woman should look like. The men decided what was aesthetically pleasing form and appearance.
And to this day, many still believe that women should strive simply to please men’s standards of beauty.
Throughout the Renaissance, the achievement of beauty was seen as a woman’s duty. If a woman didn’t maintain a standard of men’s perceived beauty, the men deemed this to be a serious failure. Society put a lot of pressure on women to meet a man’s aesthetic standards.
(And interestingly, in Renaissance beauty, it wasn’t desirable to be thin; yet nonetheless, their particular ideals were just as stringent as the opposite ideals imposed on women today.)
The ideal Renaissance woman was supposed to have long, wavy blonde hair, dark eyes, and a high forehead. Not to mention, white skin with hints of rosy cheeks.
Men liked fleshy arms and legs, broad hips, and a round stomach! Can you believe that thinness and a flat stomach was an unwelcome beauty flaw back then?!
And guess what, the Renaissance doctors even helped women achieve this look! They had ink to put into the women’s eyes to change their color--and special diets to “fatten them up”. . . all damaging to a woman’s health, of course.
Does this sound all too familiar in 2023?
Fad diets? Liposuctions? Toxic silicone breast implants? Veneers covering decaying teeth underneath them?
Today’s woman has ditched putting ink into her eyes; but she’ll use toxic chemicals on her hair and nails, and lie on tanning beds in order to achieve the 21st century ideal aesthetic look; regardless of the risks to her health.
So, back to the question: Who is aesthetically beautiful?
I guess it depends on when you were born!
And to think of all of the verbal abuse many of us endured as kids. . . and the meals we may have skipped (or vomited)—that just about killed us in order to have a flatter, more visually appealing stomach.
We were just born into the wrong century!
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with improving one’s appearance; it’s okay to figure out ways to become the best version of yourself. But don’t ever let anyone lock you into an arbitrarily fabricated standard of what aesthetic beauty is “supposed” to look like.
And there’s nothing wrong with maintaining a favorable weight in order to recover one’s health; in fact, that can be life-saving for many individuals. . .but be vigilant it doesn’t become an unhealthy obsession that sucks the joy out of you in the process. If you feel pressured to live up to others’ expectations that are nearly impossible to achieve, run the other way! (Here’s a link to my story: “How Being a Weight Loss ‘Success Story’ Triggered an Eating Disorder.”)
And parents, don’t ever pressure your children to look a certain way in order to appease your perception of an ideal image.
You can never go wrong if you love others just the way they are; and that starts with loving and accepting yourself just the way you are.
Love never fails.
This post is dedicated to all women who are truly beautiful just the way they are today.
Emily Boller, artist, mother, and author of Starved to Obesity, lost 100 pounds more than fifteen years ago by eating an abundance of high-nutrient, plant-rich food. Today, she’s certified in whole plant food nutrition from the Nutritarian Education Institute. She’s on a mission to combine practical, no-nonsense and cost-effective tips—with easy to understand science—in order to help anyone escape the addictive grip of the Standard American Diet. And now, she’s on a mission to bring awareness to the suffocating and potentially deadly trap of eating disorders as well.