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American Obessions

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Submitted By ericapr5
Words 550
Pages 3
Erica Prophete
Professor Tarver
01 April 2013
ENC 1101 9:00am

Americans Obsession with Appearance

In today’s society, many Americans have become really obsessed with their appearance. We would see numerous of people spend thousand of dollars on products and specifics items just so they would look appealing. Based on the advertisements that we would see on television, magazines, ads and etc; Americans became victims to the pressures of being fashionable, thin, and beautiful. Fashion is one of the largest obsessions that Americans face when it comes to appearance. When walking in a retail department, you would see the clothing changes almost every week based on what is in trend. According to Mark Dolliver, Fashion companies attract the attention of approximately 70 million American young people know as generation y.(Mark Dolliver.) In today generation, we see that the fashion statement has changes and it also attract the older generations known as generation x. Many older people does not like to feel old but quite younger than they would actually look. Although the media certainly doesn't help the problem, it is common for humans to prefer to look pretty. What is considered beautiful may change in different times and places. Today’s youth is simply different from what it used to be back in the 80s and it reminds the older people of all the good times they had when they were younger.
According to Mark Dolliver, In our youth-obsessed culture, looking good naturally--or, as the case may be, unnaturally--means looking young (Mark Dolliver.) The media just shows us what we want to see. If pictures of old or fat people were sold in magazines or movies, then that's what we would have. We are blinded by what we would see in the media and go on with it. We, Americans spend so much time and money trying to appear more youthful because we can afford to in order to feel appealing likes all the major celebrities. Many young ladies would kill themselves in order to look like their favorite celebrity. When we walk out in the society, we would many people try to impersonate an A-list celebrity such as Beyonce, Brad Pitt, Kim Kardashian and etc. If we were struggling to keep enough food for our family, then we wouldn't have the time or energy to care how we look which builds better self-esteem for many. The only real problem with this situation is that we aren't able to feel as good about ourselves for who we are naturally. Whenever there’s any event, you would see many people go beyond their limits just to create a good impression. By all means, society would be like them selves and not be so obsessed with what the media throws at them. By this, many people would feel loved and learn to appreciate what they have instead of other have. To conclude, in my opinion, Americans would better love themselves if they were not so obsession with society. This wouldn’t be such an issue if society were to act like them selves. Life shouldn’t be based on how people look or how people would dress. We need to realize that appearance should not be an issue but should focus on education, finance and other importance in life.

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