For years many people have been arguing that a person’s weight doesn’t define their beauty. I happen to agree with that. Just because someone isn’t a size O, 6, or 10 doesn’t mean that they aren’t beautiful or aren’t worthy of being a model. However, Yahoo! News has a different view. Yahoo! News recently published an article regarding girls’ weight and the relationship that has to how many parents raise them entitled: Girls With Single Parents Twice as Likely to Be Obese.
The article claimed that girls who are raised by single parents are more likely to be obese and backed up the claim based on medical studies. It sounds like an article in the health section rather than the beauty section, doesn’t it? Nothing in the article mentioned cosmetics or anything that is actually beauty related. If a person is obese or underweight it is, in fact, a health issue, NOT a beauty issue, as both issues have the possibility to negatively affect a person’s health.
However, it wasn’t in the health section. It was in the beauty section of Yahoo!’s News. I think that it is insulting to women and girls that this article was published in the beauty section because a person’s beauty has nothing to do with their weight the article. In fact, the title specifically singled out girls while the article itself stated that children of both sexes are affected by being raised by single parents.
Yahoo! is internationally known and can be easily accessible to impressionable girls and women of all ages. The fact that the article was published in the beauty section of Yahoo! News can reinforce a negative and incorrect message that a person’s beauty is measured by their weight.
So, I’m calling out Yahoo! News, and the article’s writer, Amy Capetta, as to why an article that clearly belongs in the health or science section, to respond as to why they decided to put it in the beauty section and specifically single out girls in the title.