"Beauty"

In society today people are encouraged to look a certain way. We have all known this since we were kids. Women are supposed to be thin and beautiful with long shiny hair and perfect butts. Men are supposed to have big arms and cut six packs. Most of us however do not fit into this mold of the ideal human. The idea of the ideal physical appearance has been around since the ancient world. The Greeks and Romans would sculpt perfectly proportionate men and women. There was even something called the golden mean, which was a perfect ratio for each body part and if you met that ratio you were beautiful. The problem is the pressure to have this ideal body has created an incredible sense of inadequacy in people who fall below the standards. We have created anorexia, bulimia, calorie counters, unhealthy exercise addictions, plastic surgery "improvements" and many more unhealthy lifestyles so that people can attempt to be "beautiful". The question is how far is too far to try and meet this standard and also why do we let people define beauty for us? Today a size two is what is considered to be beautiful for a woman. For those of you who do not know, Marilyn Monroe who was considered to be very beautiful and desirable when she was alive and was actually a size 12, which by today's standards would be considered fat. How could we allow this to happen? When did we decide that it was okay to make our models starve themselves and have guys on so many steroids that they permanently damage their health?! For those of you reading this I encourage you to forge a path away from our society's idea of beauty and to make your own and to live by it and be happy with who you are.