Nearly 60% of college students are anxious about their appearance
-girls are more anxious and are more evaluated in the unexpected world
"Eat purple sweet potato, pumpkin, chicken sausage for breakfast, a small bowl of buckwheat noodles, a few broccoli, half a cucumber for lunch, half a corn, an egg, an orange for dinner..." Yi, 170 cm tall and weighing 110 kg Kun plans to lose fat during the holidays. This is her three meals a day.
And behind this "cautious" recipe is the facial anxiety that has plagued her for 10 years.
It takes Zuo Zhuo two months of living expenses to buy a 4-week weight-loss drug.
Although knowing that such a weight-loss drug from "Wild Road" may have great harm to the body, the almost pathological pursuit of "bamboo legs" and "A4 waist" made her unable to help but place orders.
Like Yi Kun and Zuo Zhuo, college students are plagued by facial anxiety.
Click on the Weibo topic and search for the keywords "look anxiety", "do you have facial anxiety", "how difficult is facial anxiety", "how to solve facial anxiety", "refuse facial anxiety"... dozens of hot search topics are included In my eyes, the total number of readings of related topics exceeds 1 billion times.
Recently, China Youth College Media conducted a questionnaire survey on the topic of facial anxiety among 2063 college students across the country. The results showed that 59.03% of colleges survived with a certain degree of facial anxiety.
Among them, boys (9.09%) have a higher proportion of severe facial anxiety than girls (3.94%), and girls (59.67%) have a higher proportion of moderate anxiety than boys (37.14%).
Why does appearance anxiety come from?
Chi Yukai, associate professor of the School of Psychology at South China Normal University, said that psychological research has found that women have more serious facial anxiety than men.
At the same time, facial anxiety presents a certain level of age structure. "It is often young people in their 20s who have facial anxiety." Some college students are too concerned about themselves and self-centered, and they are more likely to have facial anxiety problems, even because of their appearance. Anxiety leads to social fear and other situations, "For example, some college students dare not go out to see people because of acne."
A survey by the China Youth School Media found that college students showed certain differences in their appearance satisfaction ratings.
55.29% of the college students surveyed gave their appearance a 3, and they thought their appearance was average, 24.73% were more satisfied with their appearance and scored 4, only 7.87% said they were very satisfied with a full score of 5. Interviewers said they were not satisfied with their appearance, 2.45% said they were very dissatisfied.
The data shows that boys (12.77%) are more satisfied with their appearance than girls (6.08%).
Tang Yuqi, who often feels inferior due to her looks and figure, said that as long as she looks in the mirror for more than one minute, she can find a lot of problems for herself.
In her opinion, many parts of her body have not met her psychological expectations. "For example, the nose is not high enough, the chin is short and flat, and the eyes are small." Tang Yuqi often suffers from these "unsatisfactory" problems. "And worry, even if she goes down to the dormitory to get takeaway, she has to put on a simple makeup for herself, "There is no way to accept herself without makeup."
The Chinese youth school media survey found that inferiority complex (53.51%), popular monotonous aesthetics (51.68%), excessive expectation of others' recognition (49.39%), and mutual comparison (47.51%) are the main causes of facial anxiety.
The beauty of Yi Kun, who majored in broadcasting, can be described as "very good at playing".
When the elementary school is over, Yikun is the girl who walks in the front and holds the class card; at the middle school sports meeting, she is the team leader. Such a girl who is always pushed "in the center of the stage" is troubled by her appearance anxiety. As long as 10 years.
However, most of her anxiety stems from herself.
In the third grade of elementary school, Yikun read her mother's fashion magazine and for the first time knew what "three courts and five eyes" means.
She took the ruler she usually used to count and gestured to her face, "At that time, she found that her five eyes were up to the standard, but Santing didn't meet the gold standard." It was the first time for Yi Kun, who grew up boasting of being "beautiful". Realized that I didn't seem to be that perfect.
Entering middle school, Yikun, who was caught by Weibo, saw a bigger world.
Also because of the increase in information receiving channels, I have seen more "beautiful young ladies", and since then, her appearance anxiety "only increased but not decreased."
When he was just freshman, a good friend suggested that the "pear-shaped body" Yikun should wear less jeans.
Although Yikun is very grateful for her friend's suggestion, it also adds another "difficult problem" to her anxiety.
As a junior girl with deep anxiety about her figure, Zuo Zhuo, who plans to join the media field, seems to have been losing weight.
"If you ask a question on Weibo, what is the weight of a girl who is 165 cm tall is considered thin? They will tell you that it is 85 jin." Because of the requirement to appear on the scene from time to time in study and practice, the camera will often show Zuo Zhuo" Lateral stretch".
Compared with other "bloggers" on the Internet, she felt a little bloated.
Chi Yukai said frankly that many college students are currently troubled by facial anxiety mainly due to three reasons.
First of all, beauty is good. This is a common impression of people.
In the case of job hunting, if other conditions are the same, good looks will have certain advantages.
Secondly, with the current development of social media and the rapid development of information, personal judgments of appearance are gradually affected by external factors such as the social environment.
"Each of us is exposed to a lot of information every day, and mobile Internet information takes up most of our life. At the same time, the Internet can present the world's best-looking male and female images to us anytime and anywhere. Faced with a large number of dominant images Impact, we often unconsciously form a subjective impression that there are many good-looking men and women in the world, but we are not, and we may even feel that we are not good-looking. This is a potential social comparison problem."
In addition, Chi Yukai said that because of the development of medical cosmetology, as well as various publicity such as weight loss cases, it will give people the idea that "image can be shaped through self-effort".
At the same time, the appearance is linked to money, hard work and other content. "In this case, if a person is not beautiful, it implies that the person has no money to beautify, laziness and uncontrollable appetite, which means that he has weak willpower... such marketing Suggestions are more likely to cause people's appearance anxiety."
Generation Z "Big Battle" to Rescue Appearance Anxiety
Chi Yukai said that the laws of psychology show that when people see a beautiful person, they will involuntarily match the good qualities with it.
This is people's recognition of beautiful things, and it is also an inevitable part of human nature. College students' proper pursuit of beauty is acceptable.
Tang Yuqi, who majored in accounting, knows that her appearance anxiety comes from her habit of comparing her with those around her, and her excessive attention to her appearance defects has led to an increasingly serious inferiority complex.
"I will carry a series of cosmetics such as eyebrow pencils and lipsticks with me so that I can touch up my makeup at any time."
In addition to putting makeup on herself, Tang Yuqi also bought some beauty items to "beautify as soon as possible".
On the recommendation of a friend, she has planted eyelashes, tattooed eyebrows, and dyed her hair, but the results did not satisfy her.
“It costs about 200 yuan to grow eyelashes at a time, but it can only last for a month at most. The process of falling false eyelashes can also make the eyes very sore.” In her opinion, the “beauty” brought by such a beauty project is just a flash in the pan. Moreover, the price/performance ratio is low, and it will be "back to its original shape" soon.
The China Youth School Media survey found that 48.65% of the college students surveyed said they would actively skin care, exercise, and improve their makeup skills because of their facial anxiety. Among them, 55.25% of girls would take action, higher than 30.17% of boys; 17.02% Boys will not take action, this data only accounts for 5.52% of girls; 5.39% of respondents will consider plastic surgery or beauty care because of their appearance anxiety.
During the Spring Festival this year, Wang Luoyi, who was troubled by facial anxiety, "posted" a photo of himself with double eyelids in his circle of friends.
"Although I was very firm before, because I was afraid of pain, I would not try this kind of medical beauty project, but I recently saw my cousin cut double eyelids and felt that the effect was pretty good, so I wanted to try it." For Wang Luoyi, As long as you do not harm your body and your parents agree, you can accept the medical beauty program.
"I was surprised to find that my parents also supported me to cut my double eyelids, so I strengthened this idea and wanted to see a different self."
Like Wang Luoyi, Yang Xiaoying, a junior majoring in Japanese, also had double eyelid surgery not long ago.
But unlike Wang Luoyi, she had quarreled with her parents about this.
"Parents are more conservative and think it's pure natural best. But I told them that this is a minor operation without much risk. And even if they disagree now, I will do it myself in the future."
On weekdays, Yang Xiaoying will go to the beauty salon to do skin cleansing treatments to make her skin better. Medical beauty is also a normal thing for her. "I think it should be done without harming her health. Appropriate medical beauty is no problem, as long as you think clearly and be responsible for your choices." At the same time, she will also learn techniques such as slimming, makeup, and dressing through some online videos to keep up with the current society. Aesthetic trend.
But precisely because of this, even though she has constantly made changes in appearance, she is always not satisfied with herself.
Yang Xiaoying said bluntly, “Because I watched too many Internet celebrities, handsome and beautiful women, I also want to become more in line with the mainstream aesthetic of society.”
With the continuous improvement of the public's requirements for appearance and the diversification and upgrading of the consumer market, more and more beauty, skin management, and medical beauty projects have emerged.
The China Youth School Media found through a survey that 45.95% of the college students interviewed said that they could get cosmetics properly, but did not accept medical beauty projects (45.51% for girls, 47.20% for boys); 30.84% said they accepted basic medical beauty projects such as cleaning and brushing ( Girls 37.36% and boys 12.57%); 15.27% said they resolutely reject beauty and medical beauty programs (9.81% for girls, 30.56% for boys); 7.94% of respondents said they can accept various types of beauty programs (7.32% for girls, and boys) 9.67%).
"Poems and books in the belly are more worthy of pursuit"
Although facial anxiety has brought trouble to many college students, rationality is still the primary state they present when facing facial anxiety.
The survey results show that 91.70% of college students surveyed said they would not take behaviors that might threaten their health, such as excessive weight loss, plastic surgery, etc., because of facial anxiety.
In addition, 72.65% of the respondents said that they should learn to accept their own imperfections in terms of how to relieve facial anxiety; 57.38% said that they should be good at discovering their own strengths and treat themselves correctly; 50.31% said that they should look for their own expectations and meet their own expectations; 45.11% Said to deal with anti-inferiority complex and become more confident.
In order to reduce the anxiety about his appearance, Yikun made no little effort.
"I will use the rear lens of my phone to take selfies. After taking a closer look at the bad places, I will remember. When I take a picture next time, I will find ways to avoid that problem, such as applying makeup or controlling facial expressions." "Fitness, healthy meals...A variety of healthy lifestyles are the same. Yikun has been running 5 kilometers three or four times a week for 3 years.
Chen Enze, who is also a broadcasting professional, also has strict requirements on his appearance.
A year ago, he reduced his weight from 160 jin to 110 jin in order to take the art test.
Every morning at 6 o'clock in the morning, he went to the playground to run for 1 kilometer, and then practiced sound. After the evening self-study, he went to the playground to run for half an hour. His daily diet was mainly fruits and vegetables. He persisted in this life for half a year. .
"I often cry while running, and even feel that I will be abandoned by the world because of my poor appearance." Recalling his previous self, Chen Enze said, "I only think that being like that is cute."
Now Zuo Zhuo is overcoming his body anxiety while doing some healthy and reasonable weight-loss measures.
Before seeing comments like "You are so fat, don't wear a skirt" and "You can eat it when you are so heavy", she didn't have the courage to reply. She just hid silently under the bed in the bedroom and shed tears.
But with the encouragement of more and more friends, Zuo Zhuo began to gradually become confident, and the copywriting and content of the video became richer and more outstanding under his own exploration, and received the attention and support of many people.
Zuo Zhuo is very grateful to the people around her for allowing her to slowly accept her imperfections, "I will continue to lose weight, but I will adopt a healthy way, and not for anyone, just for myself."
Facing the problem of appearance anxiety, Chi Yukai suggested that college students should first adjust their perception of beauty, and understand beauty correctly. Understanding beauty is also a double-edged sword.
"Appearance plays a major role at the beginning of getting along with people, but it does not play a decisive role in the long-term process of getting along with people, and its importance will also decrease. A certain degree of appearance anxiety and focus on image are understandable and normal. . But the focus of life cannot be all on appearance. There are many important things in life.” Secondly, it is acceptable for young people to carry out beauty and medical beauty projects to an appropriate extent, but this is not a long-term solution to the development of life. , Self-disciplined work and rest, healthy lifestyle, decent dress and makeup can help college students become better.
"The ultimate source of a person's charm is not beauty. It is the more important pursuit of college students to have a poem and a natural beauty. People who feel happy are not necessarily beautiful people, but people who feel that they are beautiful. ."
(At the request of the interviewee, Yikun, Zuo Zhuo, Tang Yuqi and Wang Luoyi in the text are pseudonyms)
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily, trainee reporter Cheng Siluoxi, intern Ma Yuxuan Source: China Youth Daily