The Price Of Beauty.

I have been enjoying sitting back and taking in the scenes from Jessica Simpson's, The Price of Beauty for the last few months. She goes to different countries and discovers what is beautiful to the women of said country. In Thailand, tan skin is looked down upon because it is a red flag to being poor, the tan people work in the fields, hence they are not as well off as the lighter skinned people. In Uganda, being fat is beautiful, before a women is to be married she will actually go into a fattening hut and gain weight for two months prior to her wedding. In India, practically every single person finds themselves beautiful, because in their culture beauty comes from within, and is expressed on the outside. In Brazil, people flaunt what they have, whether it's a thin body, with fake boobs, or a semi chubby body with a few rolls and legs with cellulite, or a extremely hairy man's body in an extremely tiny speedo. The country, that I think, is most like America in what they find to be beautiful is France. Thin models that look like Skeletor, who eat next to nothing, and all this has got me thinking about the girls I know, and that I see.

Up to 70 percent of girls that are at normal weight, believe they are overweight in America. Only 2 percent of women in America actually think of themselves as beautiful, and this is just ridiculous. All my friends that know me pretty well, know that I have a slight issue with loving myself and how mirrors are practically my best friend, and how I know that I am beautiful, and if someone says I'm not I shake it off, and say they don't know what beautiful is. To me, everyone is beautiful. In my mind, I feel that voicing that I think I'm beautiful, with all 165 lbs of me, on a good day, my hybrid nose, my size 9 waist, my curves, my boring brown eyes, my muscular build, my ridiculously short calves, will show other girls, whether younger or older than me, that they, too, are beautiful. Did I mention my ears are small and slightly pointed and that I wouldn't trade them for anything?

The stupid idea that blonde, thin, tall and tan is beautiful in America, needs to be shattered. I, for one, would rather be average height, brown hair, brown eyes, have my curves and sport my unique facial features than just "blend in" with the crowd. I have never been mistaken for someone else, I have never had someone come up behind me, and touch my arm, and then say, "sorry, I thought you were someone else," and I like being that way. The media use to make me feel fat, or ugly, but a few years ago I got over that. Girls just need to stand in front of their mirror, every single day, and tell themselves, OUTLOUD, that they are beautiful. One day, you will stop doing it, and realize it is because you don't need to be reminded that you are before you leave for work, school, whatever in the morning, in your heart, in your soul, you KNOW that you are a beautiful piece of art, and no one can take that away from you. Not a girl at school, that just "blends in" because she has been brought to believe that blonde, and thin is beautiful, not that cute boy, you have been crushing on since 7th grade, not even the girl you thought was your best friend that talked behind your back. Once you love yourself, and are confident in yourself, people will see that, and want to be more like you, and you don't need someone else's permission to be beautiful. If you really do need someone to tell you, let me. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

When certain runners up from American Idol, Jordin Sparks, and Jennifer Hudson, were in the news and releasing cd's and being nominated for Grammy's, and were NORMAL women, I was ready to shout it from the roof tops. Then what always happens with people that are famous and are "overweight" happened. They started loosing. I was browsing Youtube, and found Jordin's video for Battlefield, and part of me wanted to jump into that video and strangle her. She had dropped at least twenty pounds since her first CD. I was watching TV one day, and Jennifer Hudson popped up on a commerical. Guess what she is now a spokesperson for, WEIGHTWATCHERS. They are not at the obese, loose weight or you will die, percentile of the USA. So why loose weight? Because to America that is beautiful. To young impressionable girls, that will be what they think is beautiful. To me, that is the most outlandish bull I have ever heard. The girl who played Precious, in the movie, the media is convinced she will never be in anything else because she is overweight, and that she will not be taken seriously in the business. It's just heartbreaking to think girls feel they need to starve themselves to be beautiful. I wonder if the media considered big to be beautiful if girls who had the body dysmorphic disorder would eat like pigs and see themselves as too thin when they look in the mirror, instead of too fat.