The Mental Health Toll of Media Stereotypes on South Asian Women’s Bodies
What happens when your first bully isn’t a classmate—but a television screen?
For millions of South Asian women, beauty isn’t just something to aspire to—it’s a battlefield. From Bollywood blockbusters to Pakistani serials, from glossy fairness cream ads to filtered influencer reels, we’ve been taught that there is one kind of body worth celebrating: fair, slim, delicate. Anything else? Too much. Too dark. Too fat. Too real.
And the price we pay for trying to fit into that mold isn’t just physical.
It’s mental. It’s emotional. It’s lifelong.
The Screen is a Mirror—But It’s Broken
Growing up, South Asian girls don’t just play dress-up—they play catch-up. Catching up to what society tells them is “beautiful.”
Turn on almost any show, and what do you see?
In Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani, Rocky’s Dadi (played by Jaya Bachchan) reinforces oppressive ideals of how women should act, dress, and behave “respectfully”—a subtle but powerful form of body and behavior policing. In Shandaar, the plus-size cousin is a literal punchline, not a person. Even when shows like Dhai Kilo Prem or Meri Bhavya Life try to challenge norms, the characters often exist within a narrative of pity, where being anything other than thin means you’re in constant need of redemption or validation.
Pakistani dramas like Oye Moti and Pyari Mona have dared to feature fuller-bodied protagonists, but even then, their bodies are treated as obstacles, not normalcy. They are loved in spite of how they look—not because of who they are.
This isn’t representation. This is reduction.
When Image Becomes Injury
We rarely talk about what these portrayals do to the mind. But we should.
They breed:
- Eating disorders masked as “health journeys”
- Skin-lightening obsessions disguised as skincare
- Shame that sticks to our bodies like a second skin
- Anxiety and depression that no one wants to name because we’re supposed to be grateful to even be seen
Girls as young as 10 are already learning how to suck in their stomachs for selfies. Teenagers are skipping meals and bleaching their skin. Women in their 20s and 30s are in therapy (or should be) for the damage done by constant comparison and cruel beauty hierarchies.
And what’s most heartbreaking? Most of us didn’t even know we were internalizing harm. Because it came wrapped in love stories, family dramas, and comedy sketches.
The Industry Can’t Pretend Anymore
This isn’t just a “representation issue.” This is a health crisis. An epidemic of self-loathing being passed down like inheritance.
Media creators—especially in South Asia—must stop pretending that idealizing one kind of beauty is harmless. It’s not.
What we need isn’t just one plus-size lead or one dark-skinned model in a lipstick ad. We need systemic change:
- Writers who tell stories without punishing women for how they look
- Directors who center diverse beauty without tokenism
- Producers who greenlight shows that let women just be—without needing a transformation arc
- Actors and influencers who use their platforms to unlearn and disrupt
Representation isn’t a luxury. It’s a form of survival.
Let’s Raise Our Voices, Not Shrink Our Bodies
The mental health of South Asian women should not be sacrificed at the altar of outdated aesthetics.
We deserve to be seen as beautiful without a filter. We deserve to be loved without condition. We deserve to exist on screen without being made into a moral lesson.
It’s time to move from survival to joy.
From shame to pride.
From invisibility to full, unapologetic visibility.
And that begins when media stops dictating what beauty is—and starts reflecting what beauty has always been: us.