My Beautiful Me

Every time you wake up in the morning you touch your face, rubbing your puffy eyes, while heading over to your bathroom to wash away your dreams and give yourself time to reestablish itself into this world. The image you see, however, on the bathroom's mirror is not always the one you would like to see. Hang in there, because you certainly are not alone. More people today than ever before have at least one of their facial or bodily characteristics with which they do not feel comfortable with. According to the shocking statistics, more than 90 percent of men and women have at least once thought of seeking an expert's help in order to alter a particular feature of their body or face, which they blame to be the cause of their low confidence level. Research shows that there is a cultural backlash against the ugly or unattractive people as beauty today is the main goal for both sexes. But, what is beauty exactly? Is it a subjective notion, or a totally objective rule as that disseminated by the media and the entertainment industry? Although there is evidence that both views have their supporters, scholars point out that there has been a great shift over the past centuries on what people consider to be beautiful when they look at their own or other individuals' characteristics. After the media boom and the transmission of beauty, as seen by western cultures, to the rest of the world, a great danger has risen. That is the danger of affecting the humans' internal sense of themselves. By introducing the standards of beauty, both feminine and masculine, people are reacting with increasingly obsessive behavior in their attempts to measure up. Energy that might have been used to further positive goals is turned inward instead-dissipated in guilt, shame and unhappiness at one's physical faults. Cinematography, advertising and fashion have nurtured the notion of beauty in regards to its present manifestations. From the early more curved figures of women promoted in the 50s and 60s, for example, marketers have changed the way women should look by promoting a different version of female beauty. Thinner thighs, smaller breasts or hips, easily spotted cheekbones, are among the most important female features as presented today. The alteration has been so immense that this new boyish silhouette, women observe in magazines and television advertisements, is the way healthy women should look; even if the reality is that women rarely, if ever, look this way. Discovering the beauty within and understanding how others judge the beauty factor is important to all, because people need to become much more aware of how prevalent and damaging this kind of media influence is. It is very insidious -so much that in fact most of us accept it as the generally realm of thought. Mostly driven by economic factors, increasing consumption is the main issue here, men and women are subject to the industry forces that need them to feel bad for themselves in order to continue buying and consuming. Maybe it seems a bit of a paradox for many to think of themselves as the main subjects of such a devious scheme to extract more out of one's misery, but it is essential that people at least realize the existence of such a well-fabricated story. Then, they will at least be able to seek their own answers to the old fairytale question "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"