Women and girls in our society, tend to ask themselves, “Do I look good enough?” They often are comparing themselves to America’s standard of beauty, when the concept of beauty varies worldwide.

All over the world, females have been influenced by standards of beauty in their society or culture, especially with teenagers. Many ladies are often convinced by media and by what is considered “beautiful” or attractive” around them that they aren’t living up to standards, making them feel like they aren’t good enough.

“Once you’ve been told something that may let you look or feel more beautiful, every girl wants it, whether you’re a 21-year-old woman or a 12-year-old girl,” Freshman Hannah Kosela said.

Many females change the color of their hair, tan to change their skin color, wear a lot of makeup or go on unhealthy diets just to live up to what’s considered beautiful around them. This causes a great amount of insecurity within women and girls of all ages. But these girls don’t think about the simple fact that what’s considered beautiful in one country may not be considered beautiful in another.

In the United States today, females are often faced with the idea that “skinny is pretty.” Pictures of tall, and unhealthily thin models are always on covers of magazines and posted all over social media.

“I think society is the reason why young girls are the way they are. They’re being told through media and advertisements of how to be beautiful,” Kosela said.

This concept often has a negative influence on many females, making them believe they have to lose weight and “get skinny.” The idea of conforming into society’s version of “skinny” often gets into people’s heads.

On the flipside of this, there are actually cultures where larger women are considered to prettier than smaller, thinner women. In different African tribes, there are women who are sent to eat as much as they can all day long to achieve a larger size. In these cultures, these women are considered to be of higher class and their bigger size defines what beauty looks like.

Many countries are known for having beauty standards that aren’t as unusual as others. For example, in countries like United Kingdom, Germany and many other European countries, wearing a vast amount of makeup and spending a lot of time applying makeup is a popular thing to do.

The changing of skin tone is also a popular standard of beauty in different cultures and countries, including the United States. In Thailand, it’s considered beautiful to have the purest of white skin by the process of skin whitening, but in Australia it’s considered prettier to use self-tanner and have tanner skin. There are more unusual ones, such as older Chinese women who still bind their feet to make them smaller or those who have face tattoos in different tribes in New Zealand.

Another unusual standard of beauty comes from Ethiopia, where it’s considered to be extremely beautiful for women to have scars all of over their bodies. They give themselves scars on purpose, for it’s a great sign of beauty. Many people would find their scars unattractive but, in these parts of the world, a young woman will be more likely to find a husband if she has many scars.

“I think in other countries, women are forced to have no freedom of expression through their beauty, and that saddens me. I think women should be free to feel beautiful in whatever way they need to,” Junior Emma Cumberledge said.

In June 2014, a video titled “Beauty Standards Around The World” was posted on YouTube by a BuzzFeed account to show how beauty standards extremely differ throughout the world. A woman by the name of Esther Honig sent a plain, unaltered picture of herself to over 40 Photoshop experts and told them to “make her beautiful.” These Photoshop experts were from all over the world and they photoshopped her face to portray the standards of beauty in over different 20 countries.

When first watching this video, it may appear as if Honig wanted them to actually make her look beautiful, but her real reasoning was to show how beauty standards vary throughout every different country or culture.

“It just boggles my mind that women are supposed to be this picture perfect image in every way and, obviously, the country I live in isn’t the only one who thinks that,” Cumberledge said.

Beauty standards can be a very negative influence on anyone, no matter how old they are, what gender they are or how they look. Almost everyone is affected by beauty standards at some point and in some way. In some cultures or countries, it’s a more popular idea that people follow by than others.

What beauty looks like isn’t the only different between countries and cultures; it’s different from each set of eyes.

Everyone has their own preference of what beauty looks like. Each and every person looks different in their own special way and that is what makes everyone beautiful.