Letter of Intent

Ivy DePriest
808 Martin St.
Eden, NC 27288
2-22-19

Advisory Board
Morehead High School
314 N. Pierce St.
Eden, NC 27288

Dear Advisory Board,

Body image is something that is so fragile to us as humans because we want the perfect face or
body that is seen in the media. I chose this area as I am a larger woman which is not something I
try to hide. I have come to terms with this and I try to be the person that uplifts everyone by who
I am, not my size . I have noticed that as I have grown older, more and more people have become
insecure due to the increase in media platforms that stress size 2’s as “normal”. I want to know
why people think this way about their self image. Have we become conditioned to feel insecure
or inferior to beauty? This topic is a bit challenging to talk with people as no one wants to seem
“weak”. Sharing insecurities is a very vulnerable thing.

America has made the standards of beauty for women today demanding by supplementing
unrealistic body images through media bombardment, idolization of celebrities, and cultural
indecency, which creates significant insecurity gaps at younger ages, feeding the Plastic Surgery
Industry with an infinite amount of job security​. With my senior project, I originally planned to
concentrate on women but now I have decided to branch off and include men, as I have come to
notice more men have become insecure with media emphasis within the past year. I also want to
break down the thought process of being insecure and why some things, such as validation and
peer acceptance, are needed. I mainly want to discover why the media makes people feel so
insecure. I also want to vary the ages investigated to get additional opinions on insecurities.

For my product, I plan to create a blog of testimonies for men and women, varying in age, to get
them to tell me about their experiences with their insecurities, and why they want to be different
from who they truly are. My entire website will be a blog about being insecure; then, it will have
ways to help and feature inspirational things to make people realize they are not alone. The
hardest part is going to be that a lot of people are not going to be very open about what makes
them insecure.
 For my expert I have asked Dr. Clarence Beavers, a local dermatologist in Eden, to shed light on
why he believes American youth want to be the image created by the media and validated by its
peers. We have already begun to discuss these areas and he is a very interesting man with a lot to
say on these subjects. I chose him because he works with skin and its appearance, and that is one
of the largest insecurity areas people have as your skin covers your body and is one of the first
things noticed when meeting someone for the first time.

I understand that plagiarism is a very serious offense. You are taking something that is not
rightfully yours and it is unethical. Plagiarism is not to be tolerated and I understand the offense
at hand and will not participate in the act.

Sincerely,

Ivy DePriest