Beauty at any cost: Helping young women avoid this dangerous trap

It is no secret that our society and the media have established and continue to promote an idyllic, almost impossible standard of beauty against which women constantly judge themselves and always aspire to achieve.

With the advent of readily available cosmetic surgery and treatments, this quest has reached a new high point. By one estimate, American women spend almost $7 billion a year on products used in the pursuit of beauty.

And we have all seen or heard stories of women addicted to Botox or plastic surgery; some have had so many pinches and folds that their faces look like cartoon characters and they still want more! These extreme cases are the victims of a popular culture that is saturated with photoshopped, overly sexualized, perfectly coiffed images of celebrities and models that can make even the most confident of us feel a little insecure or inadequate at times.

The extent of this problem was documented in a 2008 report published by the YWCA called “Beauty at Any Cost.” The report highlights the substantial implications for women’s health in the endless treadmill of “unrealistic beauty achievement.” Through chronic and unhealthy diets, the use of cigarettes as an aid to weight loss, taking unnecessary risks during cosmetic surgical procedures, and absorbing harmful chemicals through cosmetics, women put themselves in precarious health situations to maintain some semblance of his idealized physical self. Women and girls are at risk of lifelong health problems, and problems start at a young age.

Add to the mix a $50 billion a year unregulated cosmetics industry that puts unlimited amounts of chemicals into personal care products without the need for testing or monitoring for health effects, ready to benefit from these narrow standards of beauty to turn women and girls into customers for life. . Many of these companies go to great lengths to market to teenagers and “tweens” (ages 8-12) as part of this goal. Their emphasis is on creating cheap products that appeal to this demographic with little or no regard for the potential health or environmental impact of the chemicals used to produce them.

Clearly, girls and adolescents are more vulnerable and susceptible to harm than ever before. However, with a little guidance, they can learn to make safer, healthier choices for themselves and be an example to their peers.

What can you do to help the girls and adolescents you know avoid falling into this trap? Here are some guidelines you can use:

1. Money starts and stops with you
Most children are influenced by the behaviors and attitudes of their parents and caregivers. Therefore, it is up to you to set the standard for what is acceptable. If you want your daughters, nieces or younger sisters to adopt healthy clothing, be sure to do the same. Take a look at your inventory of cosmetics and personal care products and eliminate those that contain ingredients that are known to be harmful. If you’re not sure where to start, check out the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetics Safety Database, available online.

Their comprehensive database contains over 25,000 cosmetics and skin care products from major and small companies that you may not even know about. All products have been researched, cataloged and classified for safety issues based on currently available data on the toxicity of their ingredients. The database also provides lists of the 10 best and worst products and companies based on their ratings.

Show them how to use the database and make it clear that you will not finance the purchase of products that have been classified as highly secure.

2. Turn them into smart shoppers
Share your concerns with them about the safety of many beauty products on the market and how even small amounts of repeated exposure to certain ingredients can cause harm. Teach them how to read product labels and look for problem ingredients to avoid.

The US Food and Drug Administration requires ingredients to be listed in descending order of concentration. Therefore, the ingredients listed at the top are the most frequent and the ones to pay more attention to.

Teens Turning Green (formerly Teens for Safe Cosmetics) has compiled a list of chemicals in personal care products to avoid called Dirty Thirty. You can download it on their site. Review the list together, then use it as a guide to reading labels and discarding products that contain them.

3. Encourage them to take action
There is nothing more powerful than children and adolescents united and engaged in action to further a good cause, and what could be a more valuable cause than their health and safety? Encourage them to learn more about this topic and how they can get involved to make a difference.

Whether it’s action to pressure the government to regulate cosmetics, or participating in consumer boycotts that force companies to change in response to market trends, or joining groups that teach and promote self-esteem and healthy body images , all of these activities serve to enlighten them and reinforce positive messages that will ultimately lead them to make better decisions and influence their friends to do the same.

4. Convert them to greener alternatives and make it fun
Host a spa party at your home for your daughters and their friends and introduce them to the ever-increasing variety of safe and healthy skincare, natural fragrances and cosmetics available, and make it “cool” for them to explore and enjoy your senses. Make it a recurring event so they have the opportunity to constantly be exposed to a host of new and different products.

Or take them to the local health food store for a shopping spree where you can review and compare products together and have a contest to see who picks the best ones first. Remember, just because a product is sold at a health food or health food store does not mean that the product is safe or natural. It can be a great teachable moment to help them (and you) become truly savvy shoppers.

5. Reward them for making good decisions
Focus your efforts on helping them make the best decisions possible, and then reward them for it. Make sure the rewards you give them are in line with what you are trying to teach them. In other words, don’t reward good decisions in one domain with poor decisions in another (ie, by taking them out for junk food or offering them candy).

If you can convince them that personal care products made with organic ingredients are better, chances are good that you can convince them that organic foods and foods made without chemicals or additives are better for them, too.

Copyright 2009 Dropwise Basics