Example of Essay about Americans’ obsession with physical appearance.

Conforming to Stand Out: A Look at American Beauty

In nature, two factors largely determine survival of the species: access to resources and physical attraction (necessary for the ability to mate). Humans function under the same basic rules. In modern America, where almost everyone can acquire the basic resources to live, humans are striving harder than ever to be physically attractive. Although men are increasingly caught up in its grip, the pressure to be beautiful falls most intensely on women. The thin craze, the plastic surgery craze, and the body art craze represent some of the increasingly drastic lengths American women are being driven to in their quest for physical perfection.

Since Kate Moss’s wafer-thin frame took the modeling industry by storm, skinny has driven America’s aesthetics. Hollywood is a mirror for our desires, and our starlets are shrinking. Lindsay Lohan, once lauded for her curves, dropped to a disturbing weight, and her Alleged struggles with bulimia were detailed in Vanity Fair (Thomas 2D), although Lohan later claimed the story was misleading. Nicole Ritchie and Angelina Jolie, among others, have also publicly struggled with eating disorders. And the stars aren’t alone. According to the United States National Institutes of Mental Health, between 0.5 and 3.7 percent of American women will suffer from anorexia in their lifetimes, while another 1.1 to 4.2 percent will be bulimic and

2 to 5 percent will binge. These numbers exclude the disordered eaters who do not meet all the

criteria necessary for diagnosis or do not accurately self-report. In a population of 300 million, these statistics represent millions of women struggling with food disorders. Men are not immune either, accounting for 5 to 15 percent of bulimia and anorexia diagnoses and 35 percent of binge-eating cases. The skinny obsession is spiraling out of control as more people risk death to be thin through diet pills and gastric bypass surgery.

But for every Kate Moss idolizer, there’s a would-be Pamela Anderson. This ideal, fed by

porn and Hollywood, is plastic perfection: instead of anorexically denying their curves, many women choose to enhance their features through surgery. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) reports that in 2006, there were nearly 11 million cosmetic surgeries in the

United States and an additional 5.2 million reconstructive plastic surgeries (“11 Million”). While it must be remembered that the rule is not one surgery per person, so that the number of patients is lower than these figures, the scope of this practice is staggering nonetheless. Further evidence is provided by the surgically enhanced lips, stomachs, buttocks, and breasts that cover the pages of men’s magazines all over the country. Strippers, porn stars like Jenna Jameson, and Playboy models like Anderson and the recently deceased Anna Nicole Smith flaunt enormous fake breasts. Clearly there is a disconnect between the sexless anorexic standard that so many women strive for and the bottle blonde bombshell that so many men favor. What everyone seems to agree on, though, is that plastic surgery is a response to the fear of aging. And in this way as well, men too are increasingly vulnerable to the superficial, with the ASPS reporting that they accounted for 12 percent of plastic surgeries in 2005 (“2005”).

Body art, in the form of piercing and tattoos, also illustrates (literally) Americans’ obsession with physical appearance. The pierced and tattooed once jarred on public sensibilities, but now these body modifications have gone mainstream. Even “alternative” piercings are now accepted: Amy Winehouse, a heavily tattooed popular musician, has added to the popularity of the “Monroe” piercing, located above the lip where Marilyn Monroe had a mole. Nearly half the members of “Generation Next” have had a tattoo, piercing or “untraditional color” of hair (Pew Research Center 21). Once largely limited to sailors, criminals, and punk rockers--and to men-- body art has become big business, drawing in more women as it spreads.

Maybe Americans have gone too far in basing their self-worth on physical appearance. Every visible part of the human body has been marketed as a fixable flaw or an opportunity for more adornment. Of course, Americans have always cared about their looks and made great efforts to improve them, but once most people kept the issue in perspective. Today, appearance rules. And men increasingly are joining women in obedience to its commands. Both sexes, though, will find that basing self-esteem on physical appearance, a fleeting commodity at best, is a recipe for misery.

Works Cited

American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “2005 Gender Quick Facts.” Plastic Surgery.org. ASPS,

22 Mar. 2007. Web. 10 Dec. 2007.

---. “11 Million Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Procedures in 2006--Up 7%.” Plastic Surgery.org.

ASPS, 2006. Web. 10 Dec. 2007.

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. How Young People View Their Lives, Futures,

and Politics: A Portrait of “Generation Next.” Washington: Pew, 2007. Pew Research Center

for the People & the Press. Web. 11 Nov. 2007.

Thomas, Karen. “Year of Lows for Lohan: Actress Tells ‘Vanity Fair’ of Eating Disorders, Drug

Use.” USA Today 5 Jan. 2006: 2D. Print.

United States. National Institutes of Mental Health. The Numbers Count: Mental Disorders in

America. NIMH, 7 Dec. 2007. Web. 10 Dec. 2007