A Chinese proverb expresses there is only one pretty child in the world and every mother has it. Reality is more intricate, and the younger ages of a person, as well as older ages, do not spare him or her from the impact of Physical Attractiveness.

Starting in infancy, hospital protocols exist for infants deemed ugly, born prematurely, or born with superficial defects, and provide special instruction and support for parents of such children. However hospitals and others do not have provision for special support to children, whose appearance is average, which is to say, lower than high Physical Attractiveness.

Conspicuous childhood disabilities have raised awareness and public consciousness over issues of differences in physical appearances. Diversity training in many areas has bolstered such awareness. Yet, children deemed fat or in other ways physically unattractive still elicit attitudes and influence subsequent discipline.

Teenagers are deciding major choices concerning appearance, often using drugs ranging from steroids to diuretics in an attempt to build a better shape. Use of diet techniques and drugs by teenagers is prolific, as are cosmetics and minor dermal surgery, such as body piercing and tattoos.

Looks dominate teen magazines and day-to-day activities, including media consumption. Self-help experts write especially for teenagers so they can cope with their special problems, including media consumption. One prominent such writer, Sean Covey, advises teenagers to mind their “spiritual diet” by restraining media use: “Are you feeding your soul nutrients or are you loading it with nuclear waste? …if a one-page ad can sell a bottle of shampoo, don’t you think a full-length movie, magazine, or CD can sell a lifestyle?”

Marketers of all sorts use Physical Attractiveness, also known as looks or good looks, to sell lifestyle to adults as well as to teenagers and younger. Although one would think adults are less impressionable, experiments reveal that such communications affect attitudes approximately equally regardless of maturity. People are either not aware of or are not willing to admit any relationship between a person's Physical Attractiveness and perceived personal attributes. Experiments continue to prove that, for the most part, people associate persons of higher Physical Attractiveness with greater excitement, greater emotional stability, and, generally, a more active and exciting social orientation. Their overall impression attributes glamour to attractive individuals and does not expect the same from less attractive people. The experiments demonstrate that "good looking individuals are thought to share many of the characteristics possessed by glamorous people"50 for whom the range of choices and standards of behavior considerably increase.
Unwittingly as children and teenagers, adults formulate expectations and assumptions based on a person’s Physical Attractiveness, yet firmly believe, or at least proclaim, that Physical Attractiveness has no significant effect on them. If questioned, they state that, except in their decisions involving relationships, Physical Attractiveness is superficial and peripheral, and that it does not alter lives. Adults, seemingly as naïve as children, consume cosmetics, clothing, physical alterations, media, and advertising, yet still balk at the admission that a type of discrimination prevails in our culture.