Body Image

In the world today, images of beauty are everywhere you turn. Pictures of muscular macho males and thin beautiful females fill magazines, television and the music business. Women go through diets faster than they go through socks. Men are at the gym, striving for that toned body they think is the answer to all their problems. But why? How did so many people become obsessed with this supreme image?
Ever since civilizations were around there were different ideas of beauty. Historical research has uncovered ancient Egyptian formulae for things such as the removal of stretch marks, reduction of wrinkling, and diminishing of scarring. Art in Ancient Egypt illustrated men as broad shouldered and muscular while women were showed as having round busts and small waists (Beauty Worlds: The Culture of Beauty).
In China, a beautiful women would have what was called a “Three-inch golden lotus.” From around 950-1912 A.D., women in China practiced something called foot bin...