Posts Tagged ‘Beauty care’
Thanks to recent advances in surgical techniques and equipment, cosmetic surgery is more specialized than ever. You can literally have the fat sucked out of your thighs through liposuction or your breasts enlarged to your idea of perfection with saline or silicone implants within just a few hours.
And cosmetic surgery isn’t just a predominately female deal any longer. Men are having all sorts of cosmetic surgical procedures done these days. Everything from nose jobs (rhinoplasty) to face lifts to eye lifts are fair game in the male arena these days.
The technological advances that have made cosmetic surgery easier and less expensive, not to mention a great deal less painful than in the past, do not account for the meteoric rise in the number of people having plastic surgery, nor for the fact that it has now become common for both genders.
This rise is, in fact, more due to the fact that in American culture there are few things more highly prized than a person’s looks. Studies have been done that prove the more attractive a person is the more likely they’ll get a job, regardless of how much more skill and experience other people applying for the same job may have.
Imagine waking up one morning to find that you are using your unique talents in a fully satisfying way, that you feel wonderful in your body, and that your life feels rich and complete.
Now ask yourself, how much time and money have you spent trying to live up to the cultural ideal of female beauty? Every year Americans spend over $40 billion on dieting. People put massive life energy into studying the latest diet, planning menus, agonizing over food choices, depriving themselves, and doing forms of exercise they don’t even enjoy. There is so much more to life than the endless quest to make the body look like the cultural beauty ideal.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Before the dieting craze began, people defined themselves much more by who they were and what they did in the world. They spent their life energies enriching the world around them instead of spending their time trying to look beautiful. They focused on their family, their community, and their unique talents.
Today women are subtly taught to define themselves strictly by how they look. And the look we’re taught to desire isn’t even obtainable. Only 5% of women are underweight, yet 87% of the actresses we see on television are. And models? Not only are their photos heavily airbrushed to remove any “flaws”, they generally stand 5′9″ and weigh 110 pounds. The average American woman, at 5′4″ and 140 pounds just isn’t ever going to look like that plasticized model no matter how hard she tries.