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average, average brigade, beautiful, beauty, Kate winslet, kelly clarkson, marilyn monroe, model, queen Latifah, super model, take a stand, tyra banks
How do you define beauty? What is beautiful?
The media and fashion industry for decades have defined beauty by purely physical attributes. Even Mattel’s Barbie dolls that every little girl plays with as a child, implants the ideals of what we should aspire to live up to. We have been brainwashed by beauty pageants, magazines and other media that Super Models like these featured below define Beauty.
The “average” Super Model is 5’11 and 117 pounds, grossly under weight by the BMI scale. In this industry American sizes 4 – 6 in women are considered to be a Plus size. To emphasize this fact, in 2009 Ralph Lauren was under fire for photoshopping and later terminating a clothing contract with model Filippa Hamilton for being too “fat”. A measly size 4, at 5’10 and 120 pounds she was too big to model their clothing line.
Beauty takes on all shapes and sizes. You may recognize these beautiful AVERAGE sized women: Queen Latifah, Marilyn Monroe, Kate Winslet, Kelly Clarkson and Tyra Banks.
These are famous beautiful women that are average sized and comfortable in their skin. They have rebelled against society and media ideals of how they should look. Tyra Banks has gone so far as to even post her own pictures online without her hair and make up done to stand up against these ideals.
The average sized woman in America wears sizes 12 – 16, is 5’4 and 140 – 165 pounds. Research has shown that about 35 – 40 % of a bodies composition and our physical attributes such as height, bone structure, body shape, eye and hair color are determined by genetics.
Clearly their are other factors that contribute to our appearance besides genetics such as diet, exercise and our habits. But… What this means is that the average person has zero ability to closely resemble these pictures in the media. It also means that the media is not realistically representing the public. The media and multi-billionaire corporations are getting rich on the insecurities they have been forcing down our throats. It is time to take a stand.
The word FAT needs to completely removed from our vocabulary when discussing beauty and aesthetics.
There clearly are some people that are morbidly obese and others that are significantly under weight. Both are unhealthy, but the average person is NOT fat.
When a person thinks of beauty and what is beautiful, we naturally think of the physical appearance. While physical appearance may play an important role in attraction, there are many factors that determine a persons beauty. If the stereo-typical beautiful woman you see in the magazines opened her mouth and displayed a low intellect, ignorance, spouted out profanities or bullied and made fun of others, would she still be beautiful?
In the studies and articles I have read, as well as surveys I have given, I think you may be surprised of how the average public would define beauty.
Wikipedia defines beauty as, “a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction.” Beauty is something that creates positive emotion, excitement and sense of euphoria. It can be a poem, story, photograph, song, sunset, person, attitude or anything else that creates that sense of pleasure or satisfaction.
Survey Says…
When I surveyed people on how they would define beauty and what makes a person beautiful, these are the type of answers I received:
Beauty is only skin deep. If they have a pretty face but are ugly on the inside, they are still ugly.
Beautiful is a person that lifts you up when you are down and listens when everyone else has a deft ear.
Beauty is something that lifts your spirits when you are down. It makes you smile and feel good.
A person that is companionate, loving, helping those in need is beautiful.
A person that gives when their is nothing left to give is beautiful.
A person that gives you that second chance when no one else would is beautiful.
Beauty truly is a mechanism of our own beliefs, ideals, culture and foundation. It is in the eye of the beholder. As you see from some of the responses I received, most definitions of beauty stretch further than the physical appearance. In fact, less than 1% of people surveyed even considered physical attributes as the contributor to beauty. Of those that chose physical appearance, most stated they are most attracted to the average healthy body over the obese or Super Model skinny bodies. These men prefer curves over bones, someone they can hold without the fear of breaking or hurting.
We are not defined by our appearance or beauty, it is merely an aspect of who we are. Don’t let these multi-billion dollar companies continue steal our hard earned money on all these diet and exercise programs, make up and anti-aging products by preying on the insecurities they have created for us. Don’t let your children play with Barbie dolls that start the kids out early thinking their not good enough. Let’s force Mattel to create realistic average style dolls before we buy. Remove the word fat from your vocabulary. Above all realize that you are beautiful. You are good enough. It’s perfectly acceptable and beautiful to be normal and average. So love the skin your in.