Self-esteem in adolescence - Term Paper Example

and saddle-bag hips, adolescents today, essentially those belonging to affluent families, are coming to view cosmetic surgery as a normal rite of passage. Nearly every body part is open for improvement. People seek these types of procedures because they are not happy with their appearance. They feel something is wrong. They want to look better. Better, in most cases, means a European or Western ideal of beauty. In most cases, a freshly chiseled nose, and newly minted breasts are often a teen’s ticket to improved self-esteem.

(Cash, 2002) Store shelves groan under the weight of whitening products, makeup, and other personal hygiene items designed to enhance or restore beauty. No one has ever thought twice about using makeup, dyeing her gray hair, using products out of a tube, or wearing a wonderbra. Cosmetic surgery, today, is just an extension of that, and it is not uncommon and unheard of, as it was just a mere decade ago. Self esteem or self-awareness is a vital part of an individual’s upbringing and his or her ever-changing life.

One should make all out efforts to understand his or her own self as well as study the strengths and weaknesses that he or she has to offer to the career that they are employed in or the work they are motivated towards for the sake of accomplishment and that too with success and flying colors. Indeed self-awareness plays a huge role in building the much needed confidence that an adolescent looks to don upon himself in any field of life, be it in sports ground or in a cabin of an office. (Billups, 1999) One has to continuously learn and ponder through the thick and thins of life and adjusts one’s own self accordingly so as to understand his or her limitations with respect to those very changes and phases of life.

Self-awareness is a unique facet of an adolescent’s life and must therefore be considered whenever some major action is being undertaken in life, or for that matter even a minor one. Adolescents need to understand