In a bizarre incident, a first-year BBA student in Mysuru committed suicide after being allegedly teased by friends and classmates for her half-straightened hair. According to reports, she had gone to a beauty parlour to get her hair straightened but couldn't complete the procedure due to lack of money. After suffering hair loss from the procedure, she had gone into a state of depression. The ridicule from her friends and teachers just made matters worse. That a minor flaw made her take such a drastic step brings to mind the following question. Is the pressure to look a certain way adversely affecting our youngsters?
Need for treatment
Body image concerns are usually imagined concerns about a physical defect or an exaggerated concern over a minimal defect. Even though the perception of these individuals may not be in unison with reality, for them their perception is their reality. These issues usually begin in adolescence due to peer influence, the influence of media and if unaddressed, can become more of a preoccupation causing impairment in quality of life and functioning. Body Dysmorphic Disorder and eating disorders like Bulimia and Anorexia are often not recognised and remain untreated in our country, where there isn’t much awareness about these issues. Psychotherapy, in the form of making these individuals verbalise their negative feelings, can contribute to their self-esteem. Medications may be needed to address the associated depression/anxiety.
Dr Vivian Kapil, Psychiatrist
Stressors all around
There is no one cause for depression or suicide. Depression and suicide have always been major concerns of mental health professionals. These are a result of the accumulation of stressors that a person experiences and isn’t able to tolerate after a point. It is difficult to comment on the exact reason why this incident happened. Theories suggest there might be a series of stressful events that a person might be going through, and this episode of being teased might have been the breaking point. It is true that the average age of depression has reduced from the mid-forties to 14-15 years in the past 20 years, according to The WHO. Beauty and image could be stressors in today's world, which exposes individuals to social media and peer influence at an early age.
Dr Akshay Kumar, Psychologist
Love your flaws
I think socially accepted beauty standards and the pressure to live up to them push youngsters to go in for these beauty enhancing techniques. Beauty treatments these days cost a bomb and when you know you can’t afford it, you should simply not go for it. It is imperative for youngsters to understand that looks are not everything. Talking with experience, once you start accepting your flaws and learn to laugh at them, no one will be able to ridicule you.
Disha Gupta, Student
Improve self-esteem
The concept of beauty has become very rigid and the youth these days set unrealistic expectations. When the standards are so high, youngsters resort to various means to enhance their beauty. The dilemma here is the war between ideal self and the real self. This disparity leads to experiencing various emotions like anger, frustration, sadness and jealousy. When they constantly fail to get results, they resort to extreme measures. Instead of heading to a parlour or going under the knife to please fake friends or society, youngsters should focus on developing their self-esteem. This means evaluating themselves based on their value system and people they can trust.
Anika C, Psychologist
Peers should be empathetic
I do not do any such beauty enhancing procedure because of the side effects. Also, I have learnt that in order to feel beautiful, one needn’t spend so much money on external beauty. Even if I do something like that and a mistake occurs, I will be able to tell myself that looks form just a minor part of my being. There is nothing wrong in enhancing beauty but youngsters should be able to see beyond harassment and be bold enough to embrace themselves no matter what. And our peers should understand that when they shame their friend, they are devaluing themselves. If there is no kindness, then what is an education for?
Lakshmi Das, student
Beauty isn’t just external
An incident like this is trivial. It's a trigger, not a cause. Her depression may have been due to some underlying cause. Unless we know the entire history, we cannot say this matter is only about beauty. I would rather add here that if we come across such cases, we can spread awareness that beauty is not just external.
We need to look at the bigger picture than just thinking this incident was the only cause of suicide.
Dr Alpes Panchal, Psychiatrist
