By Lillie Coussée
Disclaimer: This article mentions harmful eating behaviours and dissatisfaction with body image.
A rush of realization hit Zachat Ochalefu in August 2023. The third-year fashion student from Nigeria was at a modelling casting in Toronto, standing in front of the casting directors and waiting for feedback. She grew up modelling and always had “decent experiences” within the industry.
“The ideal body type that is glorified is an hourglass figure,” she says, referring to her home country, Nigeria. She felt accepted there and was optimistic this approval would follow her across the ocean.
However, that summer day in the city, the international student from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) was hit by a harsh reality.
“[The casting directors] were like ‘Oh, you’re so adorable, you’re so nice but we’re really looking for slimmer models,’” she remembers.
Ochalefu was left stunned. Having never experienced anything like that before, she didn’t know what to do. She simply thanked the casting director and went on her way out.
“I wear an extra small…but that’s OK,” she says as she recounts the thoughts going through her head that day. After digesting the shock from that moment, she went home and was flooded with negativity. However, these weren’t self-deprecating thoughts but rather reflected an overall sadness of how the industry is still operating.
“There’s such a tiny box they want to put everyone in,” she says. “Well, [they’re] missing out.”
Beauty standards are not a new concept. They’ve been around for centuries and have evolved alongside growing societies. Shari Graydon, the catalyst of non-partisan, charitable feminist organization Informed Opinions and author of In Your Face: The Culture of Beauty and You, says beauty standards are society’s collective understanding of what constitutes beauty. While these criteria alter between societies and communities, she says the beauty standard today is “literally unattainable.”
“Even if I had plastic surgery and took diet pills or whatever, I’m never going to look like the people who are considered by People Magazine the most beautiful in the world,” she says. “Most people don’t have that opportunity.”
These standards may seem to change more frequently with the rise of social media but Graydon explains that as the definition of beauty continues to shift and evolve, the way people are informed about these ideals does as well. With more people than ever posting and reposting images that reinforce current standards on various social media outlets, it makes it easier for companies to make money off of people’s insecurities.
“I think as long as companies have the opportunity to profit off of our dissatisfaction, there is always going to be a commercial push too,” she says.
Ochalefu was taught at a young age to never conform to a specific idea of beauty. Growing up in an all-female household surrounded by strong women, this reinforced the idea that beauty comes from within, rather than being tied to physical appearance.
These lessons followed her when she moved to Canada to attend TMU in the spring of 2022. She was 17 years old and, for the first time, was on her own—without her community of strong women to help guide her.
“I think that gave me a lot of confidence just maturing on my own,” she explains.
However, moving across the world meant experiencing and reckoning with two different beauty standards—Canadian and Nigerian. With a significant Nigerian population in Toronto, Ochalefu says the similarities between beauty standards bleed into each other.
“People tend to gravitate towards lighter skin or skin with no blemishes or a very slim nose,” she says. “Even in Nigeria, it’s the same thing as well.”
Ochalefu rolls her eyes as she says this, but her smile never wavers. Her confidence radiates throughout the second floor of TMU’s Rogers Communication Centre. On a cold February day, she’s bundled in a warm scarf, covering her buzzed hair.
“I did the big chop,” she says as she pulls her scarf back to uncover her short hair. Hair was always a point of creativity for her. Her mom is very stylish and always encouraged Ochalefu to try different hairstyles. She was never afraid to have vibrant coloured hair or change it up—so it was no surprise to friends or family when she cut her hair.
“[I] express [myself] through [my] hair. I find that that’s very important to me,” she says.
Even though Ochalefu was taught throughout her life to be unapologetically herself, beauty standards remain inescapable.
The methods of achieving this “unattainable standard” have changed as well. According to the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Gen Z is booking cosmetic procedures at higher rates than before and 75 per cent of plastic surgeons in the United States saw a spike in patients under the age of 30. A study by The National Library of Medicine found that social media usage can lead to body image concerns, eating disorders and poor mental health.
Ochalefu says social media was the “biggest battle” she had to face when dealing with body image and mental health. “I love art, I love modelling, I love makeup,” she says. So when she saw her favourite influencers creating art online, she felt inspired.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, well they look nice. I think I could do this. But maybe I should contour my nose a little to look slim and then it’ll make the look better,’” she recalls.
These thoughts kept creeping into her mind. What began as something simple like contouring her nose turned into her dieting, then skipping meals and eventually landing her in the hospital. Last year, after about a month of eating only once a day, Ochalefu felt an excruciating pain in her stomach.
She was diagnosed with a cyst in her ovary and was told by the doctor that her diet was concerning. Although not the direct cause of her cyst, her diet played a significant role in how strong her body was and the amount of pain she was in.
“I was trying to lose weight so I would have a slimmer waist, or just look skinny…after I got diagnosed with the cyst, I was like, ‘Okay, I need to stop,’” she says. “I just snapped back into reality.”
She deleted social media for 40 days. During this time, she booked out studio spaces in the Recreation & Athletic Centre at TMU and spent most of her time dancing freely while learning to embrace herself.
“I think that was one of the happiest times of just being away from social media,” she says.
“As long as companies have the opportunity to profit off of our dissatisfaction, there is always going to be a commercial push too”
With the U.S. rollback of transgender and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion protection, along with Meta’s rollback of hate speech rules, Aisha Sharma, a first-year biology student and transgender woman, recognizes that social media “isn’t a great place to be trans.”
However, she says there are aspects of social media that can help create a sense of community. Many of her favourite influencers are trans women who use their subscription-based following to pay for gender-affirming care, something Sharma has often thought about doing.
“Sometimes, because of social media, it feels like that’s the only path I know where I can reasonably hope to afford all the surgeries I do want,” she says.
Cody* is a researcher at FEDUP—a U.S.-based collection of trans and intersex people who provide support for eating disorders—and founder of Safety Connected, The Eating Disorder Centre, a Canadian-based centre that upholds intersectional spaces and operations dedicated to eating disorder care. He says social media, although not perfect, is a great place for people from different parts of the world to gain valuable information.
“It is a really powerful platform by which we can find information, we can find community, we can find resources and regardless of if someone is in a rural community or a city, they still get access to that content,” he says.
Cody says many intersectional people feel they don’t fit the typical beauty standard, which can make them feel like an “other.” He says it is not common for society to unpack the origin of beauty standards and how, across the globe, they’re often rooted in “white, cis, non-disabled bodies that are thin.”
“Being outside of those identities is already going to create a stressor to conform to them,” Cody adds.
Sharma began identifying as non-binary in 2018, a few years before identifying as a transgender woman. She felt less pressure to conform to a standard during this time. However, this changed when she started identifying as a woman in 2023.
“I felt this pressure to be this idea of feminine that people around me knew,” she says. “Ever since coming out as a trans woman, I feel like the pressure of beauty standards is so much higher.”
Although the external expectations to achieve these standards are high, Sharma says there is a sense of comfort in conforming to these standards and presenting as someone who is “passing” as a woman.
“Sometimes I honestly ask myself what things, even transition-related things, am I doing for myself versus for society or fear of society,” she says.
Beauty standards vary throughout different communities and societies, however, many are rooted in Eurocentric or American ideals, Graydon says.
“The explosion and the colonization of American culture around the world has shifted standards of beauty in other countries—so that white is prized in a way that it should not be,” she adds.
As a South Asian woman, Sharma’s cultural identity also plays a role in her acceptance of herself. Growing up, she hated her nose and begged her parents to let her get plastic surgery.
“[I have] a very South Asian nose, that was something I didn’t like and I was very obsessive over it,” she explains.
In the last couple of years, Sharma says societal progression and her community of friends have tried to stray away from exclusionary ideals. This helped her rediscover her identity and reconnect with her culture.
“You take me how I am. You were the one that scouted me. I’m not going to change”
This past February, she went for a facial feminization surgery consultation, a procedure some trans women undergo that includes jaw angle, nose, forehead and chin feminization, along with Adam’s apple reduction and more. To her surprise, the doctor didn’t recommend or even address anything about changing her nose.
“I know it’s not a horribly masculine nose, but would it be too big?” she asked the doctor. After her doctor reassured her it wasn’t, she felt great.
“A lot of surgeons would tell you, ‘yeah,’ and give you a more Eurocentric nose, so they were aware of how beauty standards might affect South Asian people,” she says. “It was interesting because this is something I’d wanted…and now that I maybe have the chance to do what I’ve always wanted…I don’t think I want to do that anymore.”
Cody says everybody—even people with privileged identities—is impacted by beauty standards. Gaining a strong sense of self is essential to creating long-lasting relationships and community.
“Whether they’re platonic relationships or romantic relationships or sexual relationships, they are much more sustainable when they’re connected with the self, not connected with what society has taught us to be and taught us to conform to,” he explains.
Sharma’s reconnection with her roots didn’t happen overnight. She says one of the most important parts of this journey is the community of people she surrounds herself with along with society’s gradual progress. Confidence comes and goes but her circle is always there to reassure her—a comfort she believes is necessary in social media spaces.
“That idea of a community where people just get you and there’s not this pressure to be a certain way, or be trans a certain way, or to pass a certain way, I think is really healing,” Sharma expresses.
Dara Odusote, a third-year psychology student at TMU, was the only Black girl in her entire elementary school—aside from her sister. She grew up in a predominantly white-neighbourhood in Alberta and always felt like the standard of beauty was out of her reach.
She noticed the types of people who got the most likes on social media and were considered pretty and popular in school. None of them looked like her.
“I kind of came to a conclusion that’s what people want, that’s what people like and I’m not a part of that,” she says over a Zoom call.
When Odusote got to high school, she had more friends that looked like her, but there was still a very small population of diverse individuals. Her world changed when she moved to Toronto in 2021 for university.
“Oh my God, there’s so many people. Oh my goodness, and it’s not just five people,” she says as she describes the rush of thoughts upon seeing so many diverse people all in one place.
Like Ochalefu, Odusote also models. She was scouted by an agency in Alberta in 2020. There, she was thrown into an industry she wasn’t prepared for, which took a toll on her mental health.
“[It’s] very rigorous. It’s filled with all sorts of nepotism. It’s filled with discrimination. It’s filled with all sorts of people that are commenting on your body size and making all sorts of assumptions about you,” she says.
When Odusote moved to Toronto, she decided she was done with modelling. But shortly after, she got scouted again by a new agency called Anita Norris Models. She told them no at first—she didn’t want to be subjected to that industry again. However, upon second thought, she decided to give it another try, but this time she came prepared with conditions.
“You take me how I am. You were the one that scouted me. I’m not going to change,” she told the agency. If they didn’t accept these guidelines, then she was out. They agreed and she’s been happy working with them ever since.
Setting boundaries took a lot of strength but she says it was necessary to protect herself.
“It takes a lot more work for somebody like me and other people that grew up in predominantly white areas to really find themselves and find beauty in themselves,” she says.
Loving yourself takes work, Odusote says. But this shouldn’t stop anyone from being who they truly are or aspire to be. Whether it takes surrounding oneself with a strong community of people around to realize this or a break from social media, acknowledging how harmful beauty standards are is the first step to breaking them.
“It takes a lot of courage and that should be applauded,” Odusote says.
Sharma believes societies and communities should challenge the traditional idea of beauty and that this is essential to shatter the standard completely.
“Our idea of beauty can be challenged and changed over time. I know mine has and I think a lot of that comes from addressing these issues, exposing yourself to the world, to different people [and] to different perspectives.”
*This source requested to omit his last name due to safety concerns. The Eyeopener has verified this source.
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