For generations, celebrity beauty fads have made women (and men) go to extremes to have the “ideal look.” Everything from juice dieting, binge exercising or plastic surgery has been attempted to get what people consider the ideal body. And some of these trends have just become more and more ridiculous or downright dangerous.
A current trend that is beyond my understanding is the “Kylie Jenner challenge.” The youngest sister of the Kardashian-Jenner family inspires the challenge; Jenner has recently appeared with enlarged lips she claims only look larger due to makeup — yeah, Kylie, because everyone knows your family is known for their natural, unenhanced beauty. The challenge has teens putting their lips within bottles and shot glasses and sucking as hard as they can so the suction effect makes their lips appear enlarged.
The results of the challenge are often horrifying. The teens come out with clown-looking lips or leave themselves a giant bruise from chin to nose. Some of the teens have even had the misfortune to completely split open their lips from the pressure, leaving the risk for permanent disfigurement.
While some teens decided to do the challenge as a joke, others were dead serious about trying to get “natural” Kylie Jenner lips. It is extremely sad that people would go to such lengths as to brutalize or even risk permanently harming themselves for a look, especially for something that probably isn’t even natural in the first place and especially in a such a public way (get off social media with this challenge, teens).
The celebrity beauty ideals people are modifying their bodies for are dangerous. Most of the people taking this challenge are young girls who haven’t fully developed their sense of self-identity and body image. 
I believe young women should be taught to respect their bodies. Teen girls need to be taught to become confident in who they are and to know that how they look at 13 or 14 isn’t how they will look forever.
Kylie Jenner is a terrible example of real beauty for teens, coming from a family that seems to have a makeup artist, hairstylist and plastic surgeon on speed dial. Sadly, it’s the celebrity-obsessed society we live in that makes young women follow these ridiculous celebrity beauty trends. Convincing teens that healthy is more beautiful than fake is difficult in this culture.
The only thing we can really take away from dangerous and ridiculous challenges like this is something needs to change. These stars need to convince girls to accept — rather than alter — themselves, and our society needs a wake-up call.
Lindsey Gawlik is a telecommunication media studies junior and news editor for The Battalion