The most vulnerable people are those who live by the standards of others while lacking self-confidence of their own. Since children are known for being reliant on others, this image promotes the dependence that young children have on society. In the picture, a young girl is seen attempting to fix herself to fit the ideal image of society. By looking at magazines which are known for revealing the ‘perfect image’, this girl depends on the magazines to tell her what she should look like. By looking at color schemes and details of the image, observers get a sense of emotion when noting the reality of this picture. The purpose of this image is to show the depths that girls (even young children) will go to meet the perfect expectations of society.

In the image, the girl is perceived as a younger girl because her size. Her age is known to look up to adults/older teenagers to find out how they are supposed to act or what they are supposed to think of themselves. The older women in the magazine pictures give her a push to think that she should look similar to them. The multiple magazine clippings surrounding the girl show that she has spent a lot of time finding images on the ideal look she wants. The young girl looks at these images while wearing minimal clothing which could be a way for her to dissect her body even further by finding anything wrong with herself more obvious. She holds scissors to her stomach while pinching her skin to show her hate in her stomach rolls. The use of scissors promotes the action she is willing to take (self-harm) just to be as skinny as the model in the magazine picture. She frowns as she looks down upon the photo of the picture-perfect girl whom she probably assumes has a much simpler life than her: the model is perfect. Her body language of her shoulders hunched over and her closed up posture shows her lack of self-confidence and belief that her looks are not their own sort of beauty. Her hair is long which shows her interest in feminine girly styles that advocate for long, voluminous hair. Her hair part also matches the hair part shown in the magazine photo at the bottom of the image: a blonde woman with a middle hair part. Just by looking at the image, the first impression of it is that girls will take literal harm to themselves for the perfect look. The girl aims to fix herself to look like the models in magazines who are most likely photo shopped anyways. Instead of embracing her own self beauty, she chooses to base how she should look off photos in a magazine.

The colors of the image give observers a sense of sad and emotionless feelings by focusing on the colors gray and blue. The color blue is known as a color representing sadness or gloom. Often associated with tears or sad rainy days, blue illustrates the sadness the young girl feels that she does not look the way she feels she should. Coined with terms “feeling blue” or “getting the blues”, blue is also used to show depression. Comparing oneself to others often brings on feelings of depression and sadness when realizing there are no similarities. When the young girl fantasizes about looking like a model, she will be depressed realizing how much she needs to change to look that way. The color gray represents another sad, gloomy color that comes to scale in this image. The gray blandness of the photo represents an emotionless, reserved girl who is using all her energy on trying to fix herself instead of being comfortable within her own skin. The colors used in the picture are gray-scaled to represent the bright emotions that she hides. The magazine pictures are a brighter color of blue than the background which shows the liveliness of the lives that the models live. The blues could seem happier to her than her own feelings of blue. Her paleness also gives her a lifeless look which give her a bored, exhausted appearance. The contrast of blue and gray give the image a dreary, miserable feeling; the same feelings the girl is experiencing. 

Observers to this image gain a few emotional appeals including sadness, annoyance, and mutual feelings of depression. Humans with self-confidence feel sad for those who look down upon themselves. A dream of society would be for everyone to feel so confident in themselves that they felt as equals to everyone else. Girls at such a young age should not feel they need to shape themselves to look like magazine models. Society looks at this image and feels sad that girls would go as far as to harm themselves to get rid of flaws. Observers also may have a sense of annoyance with magazines. People feel that magazines should have models of all shapes and sizes to be more realistic to the body figures of ‘real’ women. Instead of having flawless, stick-skinny models, magazines may appeal to a bigger audience if they have more rational bodies shown. If the girl saw magazine photos of models who looked more similar to her, she would not feel the need to harm herself to look different. The image also gives of feelings of depression that observers may share because of feeling this way themselves. The image shows a young girl striving to look different; something that almost every girl can say she has thought about. Although many little girls may not read fashion magazines, models can be seen in numerous places such as Instagram or Facebook to show the ideal image expectation. 

Overall, the main purpose of this image is to show how serious having no self-confidence can be. The little girl believes she is not pretty enough because she is comparing herself to flawless woman in magazines. Her body is not ideal to her because of photos of woman she does not even know. By willing to harm herself for a skinner stomach, the image gives a powerful message of the way women in society think of themselves. The contrast of the somber colors of gray and blue give the picture a sadness that represents the girl and artist’s feelings. The artist uses the image to show the insecurity that girls can have and the grave colors to show that it is not a positive ideal. Overall, this image is used to appeal to the emotions of observers in hopes to show the depths of insecurity. In a society that looks down upon themselves for not being perfect, the artist uses aspects of art in hopes to change this thought process. 
