This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Nottingham chapter.
Growing up, my looks were something that caused me so much insecurity because I was constantly stressing over my acne, my unibrow and my braces. My insecurity over my looks was what ruined my teenage years and what made it worse for me was the South Asian beauty standards Bollywood seemed to shove down my throat.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with South Asian female beauty standards, here are the main ones:
- You’re pretty much doomed if you don’t have fair skin. I’m naturally dark and it actually didn’t bother me until someone told my grandma I’d have trouble attracting guys because of how dark my skin colour was. After that, my internet history involved looking up home remedies to make my skin lighter and what colours made me look fairer. I bleached my face countless times and I still couldn’t see a difference and at one point I even hated myself for being darker. It was an insecurity that ate away at me for years. Then around the time I turned 19, I stopped caring. I wondered why I was spending so much money over something I had zero control over, all over some outdated idea that being fairer was being prettier. Nowadays, I’m much happier about my skin tone and I wear whatever colour I want (and according to science I’m going to age pretty well so that’s an added bonus!).
- You have to be skinny to be attractive. This one is a beauty standard that still is a thing in the West but you do have the body positivity movement and plus sized models are becoming more well known. In India, plus size models are definitely not a thing and so that adds extra pressure to be skinny, especially if you’re a girl. As a kid I was obese then I lost the weight before I left for secondary school. Even then though, I always wondered if it was enough and my years at school were a battle of trying to be healthy but also trying to be thin. I starved myself and googled home remedies that would “burn” fat and nothing happened. Because of puberty, I turned out to be curvier than the other girls in my family and I always felt like the odd one out because of it. I went to uni, and started doing sports and something that I’d have never thought would happen happened. I actually started to like things I’d hated before, like my legs and my waist. I’d have never been seen dead in a mini dress as a teenager but I regularly wear figure hugging mini dresses on nights out and I haven’t looked back.
I obviously still have my insecurities. For example, I regularly complain about my belly to my friends and how it sticks out at the most awkward times. But the Indian beauty standards I was brought up to try and live upto were nothing but a source of anxiety and self hatred for me and honestly, the sooner they’re destroyed, the better.