Setting the Superficial Standard

Beauty is what gives pleasure to both the mind and senses. However, the pursuit of this quality comes with a great price. Extreme measures have been taken, with women putting themselves through eating disorders, plastic surgery and risky fad diets. Actors and actresses must keep their youthful looks and fight aging in order to stay longer in the entertainment industry. Have people's popular beliefs for beauty become reduced to merely straight hair, Barbie-like measurements, and unblemished skin?
Print advertising, television commercials, and other forms of mass media are efficient tools for setting the standard of physical appearance. The common unrealistic prototype for women - skinny, tall, young, straight haired and fair-skinned, compose the bulk of today's advertisements. Dr. Liz Dittrich, director of research and outreach for AboutFace - A San Francisco group that promotes a realistic body image, said that an average person sees between 400 to 600 advertisements per day and that one out of every 11 commercials contain a direct message about beauty.
The DOVE Campaign for Real Beauty, launched August of last year, initiated a widespread consciousness on the actual effects of these forms of media. The research done involved over 2,100 women in 10 Asian countries, 58 percent of Filpinas concluded that the media sets impossible beauty standards, and 55 percent felt inadequate when looking at women in magazines. These statistics show the increasingly crucial consequence of the media's portrayal of beauty. Contradictory to the promise of a positive self-image, the end result is low self-esteem, with 84 percent wishing the media would give more confidence to women with their looks.