I absolutely LOVE magazines. I may not really remember the last legitimate book I read, but I DO have a hefty magazine collection.

Although I thoroughly enjoy flipping through women’s magazines during my spare time, I’ve always found it interesting how I find articles that say one thing, while their covers scream another. Sometimes I’ll find articles that are meant to encourage girls to realize that they’re beautiful just the way they are, yet their magazine cover showcases their other articles with flashy titles like “How to Lose 20 lbs Fast,” or “Bye Bye Belly” or “Drop Two Sizes.” Talk about confusing. So do magazines want me to be content with my appearance or change it? Because they’re kind of giving girls mixed messages.

I feel like society is in this weird middle-ground, where one minute they say that they want girls to love their appearance and feel empowered, and then the next minute they’re motivating us to transform our looks and weight. When society flip-flops like this, it’s not only confusing, but it makes it seem as though they really DON’T want us to be content with the way that we already look.

I mean, maybe it’s a little bit of both, and society wants girls to love themselves as is, while still being open to altering their physical appearance. I don’t know, but either way, our beauty standards are still pretty confusing–and controversial–a majority of the time.