Beautiful, Inside and Out

To say that the world has become obsessed with physical beauty would be an understatement. Beauty has become commercialized to the point where its definition has been narrowed down to the physical. Women who are skin and bones, who wear the right make-up, and wear the latest trend in fashion are now considered the elite in beauty. Day and night, we are bombarded by the media’s skewed standard of what is considered beautiful. This creates a problem to parents who are raising susceptible little girls and teenagers. Teaching children that real beauty has to come from the inside now seems outdated and passé. This paper aims to compare and contrast physical and inner beauty.

A woman who is truly beautiful has that glow from the inside. Content and confident, she shines. There is that light in her eyes that illuminates her face. With or without make-up, and wearing just the simplest of clothing, she exudes beauty, for she is at peace with herself. Perhaps this is the reason why the media is more focused in selling physical beauty, because it is far more difficult to achieve that inner glow. Where a woman only needs make-up and the latest trend in clothes to feel physically attractive, it takes a true acceptance of one’s self to feel beautiful from the inside.

This is not to say, however, that women should stop taking care of themselves to look physically appealing. We all want to feel good about ourselves. It is not vanity to play up our best features in order to make the most of what we already have. We all work and slave so that we can improve our lot, including our physical well-being. When we feel good about ourselves, we are bound to be more productive. We feel like we can face anything. If this can be achieved by buying the occasional make-up, clothes and shoes, then so be it.

What is hard is finding the balance between maintaining our physical beauty and cultivating our inner self. This is where the proper guidance from parents and family come into place. Making sure that children understand that being beautiful from the inside is as important, or even more so, than being physically attractive, will result to children growing up to be more well-rounded and having the right attitude in life. Incidence of teenagers becoming anorexic and bulimic borne of insecurities and self-doubt will be less prevalent.

Beauty has been the subject of countless poems, movies, songs, and novels, among others. What constitutes beauty has been debated upon since the dawn of time. We now live in a world obsessed by it; the physical side, that is. There are benefits to making ourselves physically attractive, but there are pitfalls as well. The key is in remembering that what we are on the inside feeds what we can be on the outside. No amount of money spent on making us beautiful can truly make us so. It is only when we are content with our inner selves that our true beauty comes out. As Kahlil Gibran so aptly puts it, “beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."


I wrote this essay for my Composition Class. We were required to write in 450-550 words. I don't know if I did a good job comparing and contrasting though.