Essay On Beauty

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Beauty is often hard to define. According to Mirriam-Webster's dictionary (2014), beauty is defined as “the qualities in a person or a thing that give pleasure to the senses or the mind”. Society today is obsessed with beauty. From the day we are born we are concerned with our outward appearance. Every year millions of people spend trillions of dollars on various products and services to alter or improve their physical appearance. People spend copious amounts of time trying to look like what they see in the media, which is more than often a modified and false version of “natural beauty”. This immense industry, which includes makeup, fragrances, toiletries, diet products and cosmetic surgeries, has major psychological and physical effects on individuals, and a large economic impact on society.
Researchers believe that as humans we are all born with the ability to differentiate beauty instilled in us, no matter what culture we are brought up in. Many studies have been conducted which individuals are to rate faces on physical attractiveness. The results of these studies have led researchers to determine that beauty could be broken down to a mathematical formula. For example, as humans we favour symmetrical faces and bodies, We prefer faces which the eyes, nose, lips that are all set in specific proportions from each other and bodies that have specific ratios such as hip to waste ratio in women conducive for child bearing. Scientists also believe that it is instilled in humans to find younger people more attractive than older particularly when it comes to choosing a mate, for the same reason.
The beauty industry has been around for thousands of years evolving and repeating countless times. Cosmetics were used by Egyptians thousa...

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... people has made a huge impact on society who want to purchase products and services to make alter their looks and be more “beautiful”. When people are told something repeatedly they start to believe it even if it originally went against their views and morals. People want to be just like their favorite singer or TV star and are willing to go to any length to achieve it. However, this “natural beauty” many celebrities have seem to have is not so natural. Most people believe these famous individuals are just naturally perfect.They do not see the time, work, and money invested into celebrities to make them look the way they do. This gives society, especially young people an incredibly skewed, nearly impossible idea of what is naturally beautiful. This skewed idea of what beauty is can lead to depression, low self-esteem and eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.

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