Spirit Days at UWCSEA

On the 28th of October 2015, at UWCSEA east campus, all middle school students got the chance to dress up for twin day. Twin day was one of the three dress up days decided by the middle school community. The two other dress up days included Pyjama Day and Halloween Day. Spirit days at UWC represent the community and brings everyone together. Everybody asks each other about their costumes and there is a big buzz around the middle school. When the day finally came when middle school students could dress up, students and teachers would comment on unique costumes and talk about all the small things. On student said “I love seeing everyone dressing up, everybody put so much effort into everything!” Another said “”It’s so exciting to dress up! It makes school much more fun.” Students at UWCSEA love spirit days because it brings everyone together.

Spirit days don't just bring students together. Spirit days bring classes and whole grades together. One of the grades in middle school that really glued together were the Grade 8’s. There was lots of pressure on the Grade 8’s as of the dragon’s cup. Dragon’s cup is an new exciting and exhilarating competition between the Grade 8 Mentor groups. On the 28th of October, each mentor groups were going all out on costumes to win the most dragon points. Dragon points are awarded to the mentor groups that has the most people dress up and also with the most spirit, skill and determination throughout the day. Whichever mentor with the most points at the end of the year wins a trophy and a pizza party. By adding dragon cup points, most Grade 8 UWCSEA students wanted their class to win so everyone tried to some up with the best costumes. This shows grade school spirit but does this mean that students are just putting on a show for the points? Or for actual team spirit. Does this mean that spirit days are going to better with dragon points on the line. Will spirit days never be the same again?

Spirit days might never be the same again and neither might someone’s purity. Do parents have a say in spirit days? Do they have a say on whether or not you're going to do your homework? Most mothers would say something along the lines of “Why are you sending so much time on that costume! Why not do your homework! Don’t you want to get a good grade?” Others would say something like “Get your priorities right! You don’t need to know how to be a fashion designer, you just need to know how to do math so you can get a good job!” Spirit days are supposed to be fun but then why would someone be getting told off for spending lots of time on a costume? Just to get the dragon points. To solve this problem, someone would have to stop the dragon cup. But would that be the right decision?

Teenage Insecurity

Oh the things we do to fit in. We go so far but really? How far are we going?

It’s a Wednesday afternoon and a girl is crying in the bathroom alone because she doesn’t feel good enough. She put in so much effort into studying at home but she get’s a 4 in her test. She decides to lie to her parents because she doesn’t want to let them down. She lied to the people closest to her. But why?

Feeling like you're not good enough is very common. A middle school student quotes, “Because we have access to the internet, we have created this perfect body image that nobody can achieve”. This evidence signifies that if a girl doesn’t feel like she meets the standard of the perfect girl, then she is useless and isn’t perfect but then again, nobody is perfect. Middle school girls can feel many different ways. Like they’re not smart enough, popular enough, fun enough, good enough for anyone and anything. They can feel like this at home, at school, with their friends and when they’re alone.

More and more teens are feeling insecure everyday and one of the main factors of this is social media. Most girls have social media. According to Jon Negroni, he says that “Bragging can cause low self-esteem. As a result of this, it’s not just bragging anymore, it’s become a social competition.” Teens go on social media and see what other people are doing and how much fun they’re having. This causes them to feel left out and them wanting what that person has. But why would we want what others have when we could have just as much as them.

Why can’t we accept what we have and what we don’t have. Why do we have the want for everything else? Why can't we accept what we have and who we are and not try to change because everybody is perfect and nobody should have the want to change to get someone’s approval.

Social media does have its’ pros and cons for example seeing what your family is doing and keeping in touch with friends but then again, social media can lead to insecurity and in major cases depression. Social media can be perceived in many different ways, many good and many bad. That’s all up to the person who is affected by social media in the first place.

Another factor that plays a big role with insecurity and teens is not talking to their parents/ guardians. 7 in 10 girls believe that they are not good enough or measure up to their parents expectations. What is revealed here is that girls need to talk to their parents about their expectations and what they can and cannot achieve. Being scared about your parents is not the way to go. The top wishes among teenage girls is to communicate with their parents better.

This indicates that if teens just talked to their parents, they wouldn’t have to be insecure about most the things they are with. They wouldn’t need to be scared of not looking good enough for their friends, for getting the best grade on a test and fitting in. Because if girls just talked to their parents, they could receive some great advice which would help them in the future, for anything. Talking to your parents could be the easiest remedy for teen insecurity.

If you are feeling insecure for whatever reason, try talking to the people closest to you. For example your parents/ guardian, teachers or friends. They will understand what you're going through and will want to help you as much as they can. Another thing to try is disconnecting from social media for a while. Enjoy your life as it is and not what other people are doing in tiny minescule pictures on your screen. If you want to wear something or do your hair in a different way, just do it. Nobody should care what people think because if you like it, then that's what matters. What matters is that you're happy and that you are living life to the extreme.

We need strong empowered woman in this world and if girls are feeling insecure about how they look, the world is going to crumble. Yes boys do work and put in the effort and woman can do the exact same thing as them and in some cases, even better. If girls are insecure, the school will struggle. No one will have a strong opinion about how girls are treated and act making the boys push the girls around. Girls should be able to stand up for themselves but if everyone is insecure and afraid, then how are girls going to stand up for themselves in the real world past school?

What if most of the girls in the world were insecure, what would the world look like? Girls would have no rights or any privileges.  If you know you are insecure or know somebody who does feel insecure, talk to them and all of their problems could be solved. You just need to talk.

Unrealistic Beauty Standards In The Media

Unrealistic beauty standards have resulted in a number of young girls and women to develop eating disorders, mental and physical health problems.

With almost all magazines and media photoshopping their models to have thigh gaps and fixing all their ‘flaws’ These outrageous beauty standards in the media affect almost all children, especially young girls and teens. Showing them that this is what society expects them to look like and if they have ‘flaws’ or don’t fit into a certain weight category it will effect them in a negative way. With a lot of dangerous diets and ‘cleanses claiming that this will make you look 100 times better, ’ there is a result in a number of young girls and women developing some mental and physical health problems. Within the last couple of years society has supported the idea that the ‘thigh gap’ since then there have been a number of dangerous diets to try to achieve the thigh gap.

“I wish that I had a thigh gap” “Have you seen this model's flat stomach? I wish I had a flat stomach” “I hate my body” A young girl, who will remain nameless (age 9) Her mother responded “I think that it's heart breaking that young girls and women hate their own bodies because the media has brainwashed them into thinking that they need to look a certain way”

Unrealistic Beauty Standards In The Media

What shapes our perception of beauty? When we answer that question we tend to think about models with unattainable standards of perfection. Why is that?

Earlier this month 19 year old australian model Essena O’Neill had released a video called “Why I REALLY Quit Social Media” In the video she talks about how all the photos in her instagram are not ‘candid’ and how it was not real life. She goes on to talk about how she had an unhealthy obsession with looking perfect and ‘beautiful’ when the beauty standards in the media are so unrealistic. “I was measuring my self worth by the number of likes and followers I had, I was measuring my own self worth on someone else's opinion” She said in the video.

Young adults and the media are obsessed with looking a certain way or being a certain weight to be considered beautiful or pretty. This is unhealthy and pressures people, especially young girls to look like all the unrealistic beauty standards. The media tells us that this is what an average girl should look like.

This impacts a lot of young girls self esteem and feeling of self worth. Lexie Cohen, only 9 years old would ask on a daily basis “What’s wrong with me? Am I too fat? Am I too skinny? She is easily influenced and not very confident. It’s heart breaking because she is only 9 years old and she is already obsessed with what others think of her. When we were 9 years old we would go play outside all day and hang out with our friends, we were not always behind a screen looking at models and movie stars that have ‘perfect bodies’ and think to ourselves ‘why don’t I look like that?”

Every day we see ads and models on magazines that have been photoshopped or had gone through hours of hair and makeup to look the way they look. Kids are being affected by social media at very young ages. Society makes you think that you must look like models to be confident and love yourself.

“Unrealistic beauty standards are getting out of control, they are pressuring girls everywhere to be a certain weight or to fit a certain size.” says Kimaya Shahi grade 8 student at UWC east, she continues to say “This is unhealthy because some girls are going on dangerous diets or starve themselves to be ‘pretty’” Over the past couple years, a new beauty trend has been to have a thigh gap. Media has claimed that if you have a thigh gap you are healthy and fit, but this is not actually the case.

There have been a lot of extremely dangerous diets circulating that claim that these diets will help you lose a lot of weight in a short period of time. A lot of people that have tried these diets have been hospitalized because they were starving themselves and/or over exercised, Just two examples of these diets are ‘Purging’ and the ‘K-E diet’.

Purging includes making yourself vomit, chewing food and spitting it out, and abusing laxatives. “These unhealthy and unsafe behaviors are not uncommon on college campuses, pose serious health problems, and are the first step in the development of eating disorders,” says Connie Diekman, RD, the director of nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also counsels students who have eating disorders. Regular vomiting or abuse of laxatives also causes fluid loss that can cause serious dehydration.

One of the more physically repulsive diets that has become popular recently is the ‘K-E diet’. This diet involves sticking a tube up your nose and ingesting your food through the tube. The fluid drip that must be left for 10 days to work and has protein, fat and water. It constantly drips through the nose. These are a lot of dangers with this outrageous diet, having no physical energy, kidney troubles and sometimes kidney failure, in serious cases this diet has caused death. But anything to lose a few pounds, right?

Sadly there are a lot of people that do go on these stupidly dangerous diets just to shed pounds. Is losing weight that important to risk your life?

A shocking example the unrealistic standards of beauty is Abercrombie and fitch CEO Michael Jeffries, he had said that he only wants ‘cool and popular kids’ to shop at his stores, which is why he refused to stock anything above an AU size 14. Imagine being a young kid going into a store and not being able to buy anything because you are ‘too big’. That would hurt your self esteem and make you feel like you have to be a certain weight or size to be able to fit in or love yourself and how you look?

“There are always going to be people that judge you and everyone will have to deal with it in life all the time so there is no point in obsessing about what others think of you, you will be a lot happier if you learn to love yourself and be happy with who you are.” says 13 year old Jee Jee, a grade 8 student at UWC

The media is emphasizing that to be happy you need others approval, because that's all that matters, not your happiness, not your personality, but the number that tells you if you are worth it or not.