Beauty

“No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted” is the phrase that ends the very brief video below. And I apologize if you’ve all seen this before, I know it's a few years old. But I hadn’t seen this before yesterday, and I found it pretty compelling.

Take a quick look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U&feature=fvw
(How nice to have such a quick and painless eye job!)

Of course we all know that models in fashion magazines are airbrushed and that the actors (hell, even news anchors) we see in the movies and on TV have on an inch of makeup and a bottle of hair spray, but the constant barrage of physical perfection still does something to our psyches. Does it not?

As we get older, it has less and less of a pull on us, but it can be so devastating to younger people, especially girls.

Seeing as I have three girls, this is something I’m going to have to contend with more and more as the years go on. It’s just beginning with my third grader, who is only 8 years old -- it seems so young, doesn’t it?

But in a 2002 study, fifth graders, so we’re talking 10-year-old girls and boys, told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show "Friends.” (They’re 10!)

Another 2002 study reported that teen-age girls who viewed commercials depicting women who modeled the unrealistically thin-ideal type of beauty caused adolescent girls to feel less confident, more angry, and more dissatisfied with their weight and appearance.

Angry teenagers with low self confidence, sounds like a recipe for success doesn’t it?

Of course this ideal of physical perfection is not going to dissipate, and I’m not suggesting that I’m going to take up some anti-media crusade, but it does give one pause and is sometimes good to remember how toxic unattainable beauty and body image can be.

So I'm going to throw out the fashion magazines, turn off MTV, and simply enjoy my Halloween candy, or maybe some donuts.