This collage of celebrity body parts was put together recently to display what men and women considered to be the perfect female body.
According to research males find women most attractive when they have big eyes, high cheekbones and a big smile. According to the picture above Megan Fox's face must tick all of those boxes. The reason for this has been suggested to be because these features are all a sign of youth and health.
Here is a random and interesting twist that is known as 'The Averageness hypothesis'. This states that the average of two or more pretty faces is perceived as prettier than just one of those pretty faces.
This is an example that was used in class,Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson's faces merged into one.
Personally I think this isn't a great example because I would still be Team Jacob on that one! But i have seen other examples that really display it well!
So what is it about beauty that makes people want a slice of it? What is it that has men and women running to the plastic surgeon for a little nip and tuck?
You may recall 'The Halo Effect' (also known as 'the what is good is beautiful principle') in one of my previous blog posts. This is the tendency to attribute other positive traits to attractive people. For example, they may be assumed to be intelligent, successful and talented as well as pretty. This certainly has a role to play in the desire for beauty, after all..we all want others to think well of us. I guess that could be perceived as one of the good things about beauty (for attractive people that is).
It is safe to say that there is an unrealistic portrayal of what people actually look like put forward by the media.Some examples include singer Lorde calling out on one photo of herself that had been photo-shopped. Another is this magazine that worked so hard to give Adam Lavigne a good figure that they actually photo-shopped half of him out...
Adolescents that suffer from eating disorders often report being influenced by images presented by the media. Unfortunately, media images can lead to negative perceptions of one's own body and be a contributing factor to the development of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. They can also lead to social pressures and expectations that have men in the gym and women exercising and dieting to the extreme competing to look better than each other. This is one of the nasty sides of beauty, the desire to hold it can lead to unhealthy behavior.
So is beauty a good or bad thing? At this moment I honestly don'y know so I guess I will leave that for you to decide....
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