This article is part of a series in celebration of a new, dynamic voice in Black America: the NUBIANO Exchange. Brace yourself for the NUBIANO experience. 

by Adrina Nelson

When I was a teenager, my idea of "fun" included trying out for the basketball team and going to teen hangouts. By and large, most kids during that time were involved in extracurricular activities at school, so their time was taken up doing those things.

Today, however, the social scene has changed. It has taken a turn toward the deadly sin of vanity. Teenage girls, in particular, are becoming more involved in unhealthy pursuits to attain unnatural standards of beauty by purging and forcing anorexia to morph their bodies into those of their favorite actress or model, who often appears as a size four on the cover of fashion magazines. 

Select supermodels, like Tyra Banks, have been outspoken about the fashion industry's pressure on models to lose weight. Banks has even said in many interviews that she would refuse to lose weight in order to do a runway show.

Successful opponents of the status quo should become the role models of teenage girls struggling with weight, especially those who are already small and wish to become smaller. The truth of the matter is that hardly anyone looks exactly the way they are presented in the fashion magazines. Unbeknownst to many young teens, the model's "natural" look is created with countless Photoshop makeovers, in addition to the assistance received from a team of stylists.

The pursuit of beauty is risky business, indeed. Starving, purging, and anorexia can ultimately lead to death. Even though many girls know this (and may have even borne witness to it), they are somehow not convinced, for vanity has blinded them - and who can blame them?