In Asian culture, the beauty of people was set up since ages that having white skin. That belief still available and it becomes more serious recently. Because of this stigma, whitening and lightening products industry tend to flourish. However, there are a number of health and social consequences which will be discussed in this essay.
Initially, the majority of people desire to have white skin as a result of traditional thinking and influences of commercial media. When people satisfy their demand for basic needs such as food and accommodation, they tend to think about the other need to beautify themselves. When white skin is equivalent to the beauty in the stigma of their living environment, people automatically follow this belief blindly. Many people are willing to spend a big amount of money whitening their skin. Besides, the impacts from advertisement and movies such as Korean drama, Chinese films and Japanese movies in Asia lead people to dream about the white skin for their whole body. However, these commercial media are occupied by the business of cosmetic industries which many people do not understand clearly. The booming of this industry could lead a several health and society consequences.
The effects of using the cosmetic products are health issues, economic and ethical problems. In terms of health, whitening products may cause some serious diseases for skin such as allergy and cancer. Moreover, some people also take pills which can destroy the physical health from the inside. There are a variety of telling stories about plastic surgery which the patients did not have successful surgeries. They have the worse appearance than they had before. More seriously, people could die because of the unqualified surgeon. Not only the issue of physical health, is the mental health could be badly affected by chasing the dream of whitening skin. For instance, the girls without the white skin may have the sense of inferiority. They are not confident to go out and show their ability in the public. Besides health issues, economic and social impacts from this phenomenon could be problematic. For example, there are not few woman willing to spend a lot of money on beauty spa to have white skin while they do not have time for their family anymore. As a consequence, the relationship is broken after a series of days without caring from the woman. Ethically, a number of beauty spas and cosmetic shops without the strict censored appear. They sell the unidentified products which many consumers do not have knowledge to clarity.
In conclusion, the flourishment of skin whitening products and services nowadays is alarming. It is the result of the traditional stigma and the commercial media. This trend does not only harm on health condition, it also causes some negative economic and social issues.