What is true beauty?

Being a woman, there have been times I have definitely fallen victim to the images that the media portrays of women. From being the skinniest or to having flawless skin, women start to think that what the media portrays on advertisements is the norm and than start to believe that's what "true beauty" really is. The message that these ads are sending is that if someone wasn't the skinniest, or didn't have flawless skin, or even have the biggest boobs, than you are considered ugly. This message is not only targeted to adult women, but to pre teens and teenagers as well. More than ever, children and teenagers fall victim to eating disorders, loss of self esteem, and the dissatisfaction of how your body truly is. The American research group Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders, Inc. says that "one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of weight control—including fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise, laxative abuse, and self-induced vomiting."

Here is an ad for man's body wash. Ad's like these are shown on an every day basis:
This woman is as skinny as can be, has huge boobs, and basically is saying have sex with me. When a child or teen sees this, they think that this is normal and that this is what there body should look like. More than ever eating disorders are extremely common in children and teens. Also, when a guy sees this, they start to think all women should look like this. The media makes women an object rather than a person. Even in the above ad you never see the woman's face... just her skinny, sexy body.

Whatever the stereotype, television, film and popular magazines are full of images of women and girls who are typically white, desperately thin, and made up by makeup artists to look perfect. What people fail to realize is that there is no such thing as "perfect". As a matter of fact, imperfections is what makes us beautiful. The scare you got when you were 9 tells a story of your past. Or your choice of style is beautiful because that's who you are.

Here is an actress Jamie Lee Curtis who wanted to show the public her true self, and than show what she looks like after she was all done up:
If more actresses and models showed what they really looked like, they themselves wouldn't look perfect. Because of airbrushing of the photos, or even just digital design, there are so many ways to make an average person look flawless. I believe the media should start advertising real women in their campaigns because real women are beautiful, and they are what beauty truly means. Also, the media has undermined the actual product. Why can't the media just advertise that the product is good? Does there really have to be some sort of sex appeal to every ad?

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that media images of female beauty are unattainable for all but a very small number of women. Researchers generating a computer model of a woman with Barbie-doll proportions, for example, found that her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel. A real woman built that way would suffer from chronic diarrhea and eventually die from malnutrition.

The blast of messages about thinness, dieting and beauty, tells "ordinary" women that they are always in need of adjustment and that the female body is an object to be perfected. The overwhelming presence of media images of painfully thin women means that real women’s bodies have become invisible in the mass media. The real tragedy is that many women internalize these stereotypes, and judge themselves by the beauty industry's standards. Women learn to compare themselves to other women, and to compete with them for male attention. This focus on beauty and desirability "effectively destroys any awareness and action that might help to change that climate."

Here is an ad that is simply about the product, and that's it. Why is there a need for sex? Here is Santa Clause drinking a Coke. This is what ads should start doing, using fun ads for their campaigns.