Body Image

Who doesn't worry about their body image? Every day, from magazines, tv, and huge billboards, we are reminded that maybe we don't have the 'perfect' body. All the beautiful people used in advertising smile almost sarcastically down at us ugly, too-skinny or too-fat types, with a look that says 'Don't you wish you looked this good? When we are in our youth, we worry endlessly that everyone is laughing their tits off at what we perceive to be a huge zit on the side of our noses, or we worry that our chests are too small, or our bums too big. None of those worries go away. They just become part of a larger list of faults we find with ourselves.

Where did this constant worry start? People today think that aspiring to the 'body beautiful' image is a modern thing, and so it is. But it started really with the advent of cinema. As far back as the silent movies, women wanted to look like the stars they saw onscreen. Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Lillian Gish were all being wooed by their counterpart male stars like Ronald Coleman, Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

The sales of hair products and make-up increased, and similarly, the men realised that they had to be more suave, or more muscular to attract the ladies. Gyms opened for the men, and hair salons became de rigeur for the ladies. And so the die was cast. Men and women would never again simply be worried that they had a roof over their heads, or food in their bellies. Now they had to look gorgeous too. With talkies and then colour movies, the images became more sexual, more glamourous and ever harder to compete with.

People were almost shocked to see Burt Lancaster rolling around the beach with Deborah Kerr in 'From Here to Eternity', or Marilyn Monroe in films such a 'Some Like It Hot' but it paved the way for the sexual revolution to come in the late '50's and early '60's

Nowadays, of course, we see sexual images on tv and cinema all the time, and hardly bat an eyelid, but the images of the 'pretty people' only serve to heighten our sense of personal inadequacy. We now have programmes on tv like "Extreme Makeover" where people are quite happy to have their faces and bodies butchered into shape, just to fit in with the idea that if you are not beautiful, you really should be ashamed of yourself. Once transformed thus, you can hold your head up high, be the life and soul of the party, be successful, and generally loved by everyone who sees you. Of course, nobody wants to think that when they step out of their front door old ladies and small children will scream and run for cover, but realistically, when is that ever likely to happen? If someone is tragically disfigured in an accident, or maybe born with a cleft palate or worse, then plastic surgery certainly has a place. Because we live in such a judgemental society, nobody wants to be considered a 'freak'. But because people see shows like this, they are starting to believe that it's perfectly acceptable to hack pieces off themselves or add pieces on in their quest for perfection. Plastic surgery is seen as a quick-fix, or a cure-all to whatever other inadeqacies people may feel about themselves. Michael Jackson is the ultimate example of when it all goes wrong. His father tormented him throughout his childhood, calling him ugly and bignosed. Here was a guy who had it all. He was a good-looking African American boy who was rich and famous beyond most peoples' dreams, but he had huge issues with his own body image. No doubt after the first piece of surgery to reduce the size of his nose, he came out of that with such a 'high' that he then decided to alter every other thing he didn't like about himself. After so many surgeries, his face now looks like he is the victim of a terrible car crash.

There is another tv show that uses shock tactics to now scare parents into altering the look of their children. "Honey we're killing the kids" takes usually fat children, mixes and morphs their image with those of the parents, and bloats and generally tries to disfigure the face into something horrific, assuring the parents that this is what their child will look like at aged 40. It is true that the UK is following the US in producing a nation of obese children, but it is not all down to bad diet. Since the Thatcher years of the 1980's, where everything had to show a profit or get sold, thousands of school playing fields were systematically disposed of, leaving less space for the organised Physical Education of children. Add to that the fact that most children get taxied to school and back, and are not allowed out to play near their homes for fear of abduction, and the child is bound to gain weight. Sitting in front of an XBox 360 is not the same as playing 'wars' or 'Cowboys and Indians' as we did as children. Okay, so maybe it was not politically correct, but at least we got exercise. With all the advice of healthy diet forced upon us by the media, we should all be a nation of svelte, beautiful people, but instead, people get fatter and fatter. It could be down to the fact that these days, lots of Mums go out to work, so don't have the time to prepare proper meals for their families. Instead, it is far easier to throw something in a microwave, and present it five minutes later as 'dinner'. Once these bad eating habits are established, it is hard to get out of them. Even if we escape being a tubby child, once the onset of age takes over, and our metabolisms slow down, the weight piles on anyway.

It could be said that Marlon Brando here is a classic example of how we can go from gorgeous to engorged, but the change is slow and insidious, so we don't notice until it's too late. The only thing you can say for certain is that when you are more 'mature' let's say, you wish to hell you looked as good as you did in your youth!

Of course, it is no longer really a problem. You can simply eat whatever you feel like, do no exercise whatsoever, smoke and drink to excess, and when you feel that you no longer like the look of your bloated and wrinkled frame and brown teeth, you can simply remortgage the house, and after treating yourself to liposuction, a facelift and porcelain caps on your teeth, you will look 19 and beautiful once more!