Thin Beautiful or Lethal

Melissa Cohen In American Society today, thin equals beautiful. American women are judged by the way they look. It can define who they are as people. {Who they are or how they see themselves?] To get ahead in this world you have to look the "right" way. [Why? Too cliché.] The standard of what women should look like is very clearly put to them. It is posted on billboards, in the magazines they read, where they shop, and especially on television. The media plays the most significant role in projecting these unhealthy ideals about weight. [We switched dramatically from general notions of women to weight] Image standards affect women of all ages, races, and statures; their presence is inescapable. From the first lady to your own mother, women are judged and judge themselves by these standards. [The question then becomes why do it? How have we been encouraged to follow these standards.]

Harrison Ford et Calista Flockhart Deauville 2009

Calista Flockhart Deauville 2009

Illustration of poem by John Keats by W. J. Neatby

These images presented to us by the media define what the ideal woman looks like. Naomi Wolf writes, in her book The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women; "advertising is a 130 billion dollar a year industry.

"Dying" to be Beautiful or else --a message often presented in society, is often detrimental to the American public. The desire to be beautiful has received more attention by blinding the public with images of the "beautiful people." The extent of the message the media portrays to our society is more harmful than beneficial to the average person. The images depict the common person as unattractive which causes many to alter their figure to attain the media's vision of beauty. Unfortunately, these unrealistic pictures mostly affect self-conscious adolescents who are surrounded by images of what the media considers beautiful. Each day, adolescents are exposed to magazines...