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Latin America And Its Beauty Industry

Women through Latin America aspire to be the “perfect woman” even when this ideal is unattainable, though Latinas are different depending on the region North America/Central America or South America, they share a standard that comes with curvaceous bodies and dark hair, where at times the lighter the skin the better.

Latina women, especially in South America, might not want the “Barbie doll” body, but they have their own restricted body standards, including a slim body but curvy, with a good buttock and boobs.

In 2006, according to an article by the Inter-American development bank, Medellin Colombia was not only the fashion capital of Latin America, but the capital of Anorexia and Bulimia of the world with a percentage of 17,7 of the population of young girls, compared to Spain’s 5% and the U.S.’s 10.2%

A lot can change in ten years, but according to a report made by the Daily Mail in 2014 in Venezuela, the drastic beauty obsession is still a problematic in Latin America, more when it comes with aspiring to a Miss World or Miss Universe crown. Over one third of the winners of Miss Universe have been Latin American women, Venezuela being the number one with seven won Miss Universe, it also holds the Guinness World Record for the nation with the most international beauty queens.

The ideals set by society in Latin America has encouraged a lot of girls to aspire to be as seductive and beautiful as possible from a young age, not only for the looks but for what comes with it. Physical beauty in a lot of countries comes with benefits, sometimes even more than those given to an educated person.

“When you live in a country where a beautiful woman has greater career prospects than someone with a strong work ethic and first-class education, you are forced into the mindset that there is nothing more important than beauty.” told Maria Trinidad, a representative of the NO to Biopolymers foundation The Atlantic.

Latina women overall want to be young and sexy through their lifetime, which encourages the beauty industry of the countries. In Brazil they spend $223 per capita in beauty a year, with a possible increase of 4% annual until 2019, being one of the biggest countries in the region it registers more than half the total of beauty sales in Latin America, countries like Argentina and Chile are projected to increase the sales about a 4% or 5% according to the Euromonitor International.

The problematic starts from home, where parents and grandparents force young girls to meet the ideals with the constant reminder of “you have to be as thin as possible”, they’re blamed for gaining weight when they do, in countries like Brazil “white skin” is one of the most valuable characteristics, it’s related to social status and only in this South American country the sales are up to $42 billion a year. It ranks third behind only the U.S. and Japan, according to a report by the Brazilian Association of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Industry in 2013.

Related to the beauty contest industry many parents see them as a chance to get out of poverty, not thinking about the consequences forcing their children and their bodies to be a certain way come with.

Girls undergo extreme measures to achieve the beauty standard including undergoing drastic surgery to cut out part of their intestines so food passes through their body without being digested at the young age of 16, plastic surgery is also a common factor among them, sometimes being given procedures as a present for their quinceaños, 15th birthday.  Parents desperate to see their daughters crowned queens are injecting them with hormones, aged just eight or nine, to halt the onset of puberty and cause them to grow taller, this according to the Daily Mail’s 2014 investigation.

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