By Carolina Costa[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_vVUIYOmJM[/youtube]
In a world dominated by the media, individuals are in constant contact with the unregulated messages and images sent out by publicity agencies, television channels and large corporation. It is estimated that children and young adults watch more than 10 hours of media a day (which doubles their time spent at school in a week).
Young men and women are bombarded with retouched and altered images of beauty, presenting an unreal and impossible prototype to measure themselves against. From magazines, television shows, movies or blackboards young adults are shown flawless faces and bodies that could not be obtained if their life depended on it. We are all doomed to fail regardless of how much we seek to alter ourselves, and yet the number of cosmetic surgery procedures performed on youth 18 or younger has more than tripled from 1997-2007.
But what does this unreal idea of beauty contribute to our society? Nothing but low self-esteem for our youth and wealthier pockets for those selling the wonderful products that will allow men and women to somehow stand up to the unreachable model corporations have created. So until we can apply magical products like the one shown in the video, we might be better off trying to change the beauty model to a realistic one rather than spend our time and money attempting to reach an impossible ideal.