Halloween is just around the corner, and as Cady Heron from “Mean Girls” once said, it’s “the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut, and no other girls can say anything about it.”

Even though it sounds like the greatest excuse to “dress like a total slut,” a lot of pressure is put on girls to have the perfect costume and the perfect body for it.

That’s right. I said body.

Halloween is a big deal here at Syracuse University, and there’s a lot of pressure placed on girls to look their hottest for the weekend and even the weekends leading up to it. It really is the only time of the year when dressing up in lingerie and bunny ears is socially acceptable, and even though it can be a fun time, it also can have a harmful effect on one’s self-esteem, body image, acceptance and health.

Because Halloween is so highly anticipated, some girls may partake in an unhealthy diet to prepare for those partying nights. Eating small amounts of food to lose weight rapidly in a short amount of time is something not foreign to our campus.

Attempting to lose weight rapidly for a fun night of jungle juice and slinky costumes is one of the worst notions put into the minds of young women. Judging your self-worth based on looks can be severely damaging to your self-esteem, and sadly, it’s a concept that’s spread in other ways than just between peers.

According to a FitDay article, these crash diets are severely unhealthy. The diet shocks your body and puts it into starvation mode, which burns through your stored carbohydrates, not your fat. This is why you may see rapid weight loss, but it’s also why you’ll almost always gain that weight back.

In addition, crash diets can make the dieter moody, irritable, tired and lethargic because the body is being deprived of the nutrients it needs to make energy, according to FitDay. Being deprived of proper vitamins and minerals leads to food cravings and in some cases, eating disorders and depression.

Crash diets are a direct result of the Halloween-season pressure that we’re seeing everywhere, including in the media. Sexy costumes are all the rage: the tried and true hot devil, naughty school teacher and just about every animal are still around. Just Google image search “college Halloween costumes,” and you’ll find tons of creative costumes, albeit skintight, but creative to say the least. Even Frozen-themed costumes are on sale — sexy Anna, Elsa and even Olaf can be found online.

The pressure to look hot in these costumes is now being used as a marketing ploy. Fast food restaurant Subway released an ad that has sent a wave through the masses about looking sexy for Halloween. In the ad, a woman tells her coworkers they should ditch their burgers for Subway so they can “stay in shape for all the costumes.”

“You know,” the woman in the commercial says, “like attractive nurse, spicy Red Riding Hood, Viking princess warrior, hot devil, sassy teacher and foxy fullback.”

The whole idea behind looking hot on Halloween is great. It’s fun to feel confident and sexy and free to dress however you want for one night and get away with it. But let’s leave it at that. We do not need pressure from our friends and the media to push aside our bodies’ physical needs just to look better in a “sassy teacher” costume. No holiday has the right to dictate how others should view your body.

It’s the attitude behind Halloween that’s so dangerous to mental and physical health. Skipping meals and putting your body through crash diets will only lead you to do just that — crash. Your sex appeal on a drunken night is not worth trashing your body and your self-esteem for.

Georgie Silvarole is a sophomore newspaper and online major. Her column appears weekly. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter at @gsilvarole.

Published on October 15, 2014 at 12:15 am