Beauty ideals through the ages
Throughout the years the beauty ideal of women’s body has rapidly changed. Beside the fact that beauty is always in the eye of the beholder as it is said in the text, society has been always judging female bodies. For example in the 14th century women with narrow shoulders, small breasts, large belly, broad hips, fat thighs, short legs and a small head were considered as beautiful on the contrary to the ancient Egypt where women spent their time in front of the mirror fixing their hair and make up to get an unblemished image. Moving forward to the Europe’s Romantic Age where women had to be fragile to become interesting for men, as their protective instinct is aroused. However, Victorians took their idea of the female beauty ideal and considered women with an hourglass craze, which means wide hips and big breasts, as sexually attractive. Even though many people assume that beauty ideals have no influence on their mind, women set their ideals and suppress themselves to get
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Concentrating on men, plastic surgeries and the abuse of steroids are more and more popular among them. For example breast reduction surgery, to correct so-called `man boobs`, is expected to hit a high record as a released survey shows. Further some men try to improve their physical appearance by abusing steroids but they do not seem to be aware of the controversial side effects such as acne, the growth of breasts or shrinkage of testicles which shows that there is much more to lose than to win. According to Susie Orbach, an important character in the fight against beauty ideals, the real problem is about companies making a living out of people’s body insecurities. In order to keep it going they promise that with certain products the costumers will be able to boost their self-confidence. Believing in this is one thing but abusing products is a risky