Adolescence is a period when an individual transitions from childhood to adulthood characterized by puberty (around 8-10 years old) until entering early adulthood (18-20 years old). This period is characterized by physical, cognitive, psychological and social development.  From a physical point of view, adolescents experience very significant changes, which are the maturation of sexual organs accompanied by symptoms such as: hair growth around the genitals, changes in sound and wet dreams (for men), growth of breasts, and menstruation in women. Hormonal changes in adolescents, especially in menstruating women often result in acne. In a final project research in Semarang (Astuti, 2010) it was found that from 60 high school students studied, 41.7% experienced acne before menstruation.


In addition, adolescents are also in the period of "growth spurt" or very fast bone growth. This is why male adolescents gain height using very fast. During this period, physical appearance becomes very important information. Teenagers are very concerned about their appearance. One reason is because they are trying to fit in with their group's mannerisms, so that they are accepted in the group they want to be in. In addition to trying to fit into a group (hence the attention to appearance), teenagers also try to display their uniqueness to be different from the group. So they often spend their time "dressing up" and exploring to find a unique style to display.


In the interim, from a psychological point of view, adolescents are in the developmental term "identity versus identity confusion" or self-discovery. During this period, teenagers try to find the answer to the question "who am I?". They begin to explore and determine which things define "me" and which do not.  Self or identity here includes adult gait and status, such as starting to date, and starting to determine a future "career" (which begins with determining a major in Senior High School and determining a passion). They begin to create a global picture of their attributes (e.g. I'm tall/short), roles (e.g. being a child, grandchild, boyfriend/girlfriend), interests (e.g. I like drawing/listening to music), and values and beliefs. This illustration of the world of the adolescent self is often claimed using the self-concept. Within the self-concept is also the world's image of appearance and body shape, or body image.


In addition, adolescents also begin to develop "self-esteem" or the extent to which they value and feel good about themselves. Now, this self-esteem develops in a unique way for each person. Generally, the self-esteem that is formed will tend to persist throughout adolescence and carry over into adulthood. For example, a teenager who feels that they are attractive, able to accept themselves and their physical appearance as they are tends to have a positive self-esteem into adulthood.  Therefore, the formation of self-esteem in adolescents is crucial. Along with the development of self-esteem, adolescents' cognitive (intellect) also develops. They start to be able to draw conclusions and make hypotheses. They are no longer like children who can only know what they see. They also use this cognitive ability to draw conclusions about themselves. However, because this ability to draw conclusions is just developing, it is rare for teenagers to draw conclusions that are not completely perfect. For example, among all aspects of the self, adolescents often determine their "self-worth" by assessing: physical appearance, especially for girls (Harter, 1990a, in What, 2002). So, if she judges her appearance to be poor, she will tend to negatively judge all aspects of herself. Whereas she may actually have good music or math skills. On the other hand, if he judges his appearance to be attractive, then he will tend to evaluate all aspects of himself positively. This is why assessing teenagers' self-appearance is so important.


In addition, adolescents also have a special way of thinking, which is egocentrism, the tendency to think that they are the center of attention of the people around them. Therefore, they pay more attention to their appearance because they think that their appearance is highly valued by others (although this is not always the case).


So, in summary, appearance is important in adolescence because: 1) it becomes one of the primary benchmarks of self-esteem that tends to remain until adulthood, 2) it becomes one of the criteria needed to be included in certain social groups, and 3) appearance becomes a vehicle for adolescents to show their unique identity.

Since physical changes are important in adolescent development, adults should take adolescent complaints about appearance seriously. This is because it turns out that physical complaints have a big impact on adolescent development. Common appearance-related complaints include acne, the need to wear glasses, or weight gain. Similar to what was explained above, appearance is often used as a benchmark for assessing adolescents' self-esteem. So if they feel they are ugly, their self esteem can be affected. In addition, a study on university students in Oman (al-shidani, et.al., 2015) found that the more severe the acne, the more negative the following 3 areas were:


The perception of the student's self-discourse (feeling more unattractive, embarrassing, not satisfied with their appearance, more insecure, more self-conscious),

The higher the negative emotions about the self (suffering from acne, disturbed by having to spend a lot of time taking care of oneself, disturbed by using medication),

and the more difficult it is to perform socially (meeting new people, making friends, interacting with the opposite sex). Other studies confirm these results that severe acne causes problems that are as severe as diseases such as asthma, epilepsy, diabetes, arthritis (Cresce, et.al., 2014).

Acne is not the only problem related to appearance and self-esteem in adolescents. Dietary struggles and hyperbolic diets to maintain body shape are also common in adolescents, especially teenage girls. However, acne is not trivial info. For parents who have teenagers, listen to your child's complaints about her acne, then guide her to overcome the problem. Ad interim for you, teenage girls, understand that acne is a conflict that naturally occurs at your age. For that, keep your skin clean and reduce the type of culinary that can increase the severity of acne that appears.