What Traits They Work on? Some Examples.

The workings of human Physical Attractiveness (i.e., Physical Attractiveness Phenomenon) prove a history of characteristics and attributed traits that have combined “cheating” with truth. A common principle of beauty, skin tone, for example, has developed surprisingly consistently over time, encompassing enormous geographic and cross-cultural domains. Given the large gaps between cultures and geographies, and the huge disparity between individuals, all immersed in a universe with hidden values ordered by Physical Attractiveness phenomenon, some “cheating” could be expected in pursuit of greater Physical Attractiveness.

• Skin tone is one dimension important to all cultures, but sometimes with opposite values and definitions. Caucasians in the United States seek to darken their skin tone through exposure to natural sunlight, nonnatural tanning lights, and topical lotions. Conversely in China, Japan, South & South-East Asia, Central America, and South America women frequently pursue lighter skin tones by taking active steps to avoid exposure to natural sunlight. Japan’s largest cosmetics firm Shiseido Co. Ltd., famed for its skin-whitening toners and anti-aging creams, is building on women’s desire to age beautifully. Similarly 'Fair and Lovely' from Unilever, which promises to make the skin visibly fairer, is the single largest selling cosmetic brand of face creams in India.
• Arab women, as they have over centuries, use kohl (wholly imported) to accentuate their eyes.
• Attempting to age beautifully, in other words, attempting to avoid an appearance of aging is not limited to Japan. In the United States in 2004, “Consumers spent $6.4 billion on anti-aging skin products, an increase of 21 percent from the previous year, according to market research firm Packaged Facts.”
• There also are optional surgeries. Not just cosmetic reconstruction of eyelids for Asian Americans or rhinoplasty of noses for African Americans, but autologous (in which donor and recipient are the same person) vein collagen transplantation processes to remedy dermal features judged as defects. These defects include natural but unwanted leg or hand veins; botulinum toxin type A injections (brand named, Botox) to correct normal age lines; and elective or optional surgeries to remove results of earlier optional procedures, such as breast implants and tattoos. It took only a few decades to change attitudes toward them. Along the way, dramatic new dimensions, at altitudes never before dreamed, have come to offset actions and aids previously judged as innocent, routine “cheating” of fate, time, or genes.
• Regardless of age category, cultures throughout the United States and the world over still hold a double standard in terms of Physical Attractiveness. “Working women are judged in a different way than men…they have to keep their appearance up,” according to Elliot Jacobs, a plastic surgeon in New York City.49 Women’s successes in the job market have modified their view about enhancing Physical Attractiveness through cosmetic surgery, which, in earlier times, was a recourse prized by the insecure, but, which is, now an action preferred by those who are or aspire to be successful.
• Self-help studies and support groups, not to mention completely new associations, have emerged. One ramification is that health and identity have become so greatly intertwined that it is sometimes difficult to ferret out Physical Attractiveness issues from the more traditional medical issues. For example, HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations), another 1980s creation, routinely set limits on what is medical or medically justified, as opposed to what is optional in terms of apparent cosmetic treatments. The result often produces outcries of individuals determined to secure reimbursed expenditures for enhancing their Physical Attractiveness. Related reimbursable expenses can represent somewhat unclear distinctions. For example, insurance will routinely reimburse treatment for deformities of the oral region such as the palate, but will not pay for treatment regarding deformities of the teeth.
• Attempting to keep pace, legislation defines new social policy where state and federal laws regulate certain health care procedures to provide reimbursement for coverage formerly denied on the basis that the procedures were cosmetic. Health care in general has likewise expanded exponentially, becoming a multibillion-dollar industry. The rise of acceptance of cosmetic surgeries, accompanied by increasing social approval, carries substantial economic implications for decisions about insurance reimbursements.
• Perhaps the most apparent Physical Attractiveness trend is again a reverberation of the sixties when, almost overnight, thin became the ultimate goal for women. One consequence has been people, particularly females, who embrace this goal at younger and younger ages. Attempts and ideas about being thin are shown as early as fourth grade, although the author of Appearance Obsession states “the correlation between the thin beauty ideal and depression and eating disorders is direct and constant and begins for women in adolescence.” The weight loss industry commands more than $5 billion annually, and American society has bowed almost uniformly to an essentially anorexic model.
• Almost no one rates a female body as too thin, but people routinely judge even average size women as overweight, with more than 10% over ideal weight frequently deemed a health issue. Exacting Beauty, a 1999 scholarly book on body image, proves that body image among the overly thin leads to a host of psychological disturbances.697 The norm today is a mindset goal more akin to appearance achieved through anorexia than appearance achieved through healthy living. This norm increasingly defines higher Physical Attractiveness, while normal body weight is seen as (hopelessly) diminishing attractiveness, which sets the stage for full-blown eating disorders and health issues—whether anorexia, obesity, or body dysmorphic disorder.
• Athleticism is, to many, a euphemism for overindulging their body image affliction to attain greater levels of Physical Attractiveness rather than greater levels of fitness and health. Health as an appearance indicator has blown completely out of proportion to the human organism, with mesomorphic trends in masculinity appearance subsuming ordinary health concerns, such as procreation. Use of steroids has become much more a part of ordinary society. Steroidal use is among the highest drugs consumed in the country, despite known detrimental side effects. Already in 1990, Consumer magazine, published by the United States Food and Drug Administration, reported that American “Teenagers [are] Blasé about Steroid Abuse.”
• Anabolic steroids are often not used to build muscle by boys and girls, but they are also used by young men who just want to look better. A 2005 survey of 10,000 teenagers in the United States, conducted by Harvard University, found that 8 percent of girls and 12 percent of boys had used anabolic steroids or other such growth hormones and dietary supplements.
• Athleticism and health clubs have proliferated under the guise of improved health, but the manifest interest is improved appearance. This same author even states that men have essentially caught up with women; that is, “The traditional image of women as sexual objects has simply been expanded: everyone has become an object to be seen.”
• Similarly, education has acted to assure that perceptions or realities of being overweight do not create the wrong environment for students’ progress, with legislation explicitly against bullying and expressly condemning the derision of physical attributes as unacceptable behavior.