Have you ever seen a commercial with an attractive person in it and thought to yourself, “I wish I could look like that?” Well, so have other Americans and that is what are wrong with today’s society. People feel that they need to look like a superstar to be happy. One thing that influence this thought process are popular magazines showing how people can lose weight and saying that if you’re not in perfect shape then you’re not attractive. “One body-image study found that 45 percent of men were dissatisfied with their physiques; women were only slightly less satisfied at 55 percent.”(Potter). Most people think that this only happens to females but it affects males greatly also. In today’s society women feel that they need to be 5’5” and 110 pounds to be attractive. It is reasons like this that females suffer from diseases such as anorexia and bulimia all because advertisements imply that they are not attractive. Women look at magazines like Victoria’s Secret, Playboy, and Maxim and see how guys react to those pictures and think that they need to look like this to get the same attention. So, it is pretty obvious that the majority of males are not helping this cause out at all, because they participate in the purchase of these items and act negatively towards women who do not fit this image. Although men may cause women to feel like this, women do the same exact thing to men. Every time a girl see’s a 6’0” muscular man with a six pack they get all googly over him. That makes some of the men who do not look like that feel that they have to get into better shape and take whatever drastic measures might be needed to look like this. So even though it might not be as common for men as it is for women to experience bulimia and anorexia, it is still just as likely and definitely is still existent in that nature. In the article of, My Body Is My Own Business, the author talks about how wearing traditional clothing in her country is what the women in her religious nature are supposed to wear. The author in this article feels that she doesn’t and shouldn’t have to wear what she is supposed to wear, hence the title. This article is used in relation to this paper, because it falls under the same main thesis of someone’s body being their own business. Men go around just the same as women and get hassled for their body type, whether they are too fat and not toned enough or too short and not quite that manly height that they are “meant to be”. A persons body is there own business, let them figure out how they want their body to be, and how they want to run their life in order to maintain the body that they have chosen for themselves. In the article, “we feel compelled to pursue abstract notions of beauty, half realizing that such a pursuit is futile.”(Mustafa 244). This quote means so much more then people could ever know. It means that every since anyone was a child they were taught what they should look like and how to get to that body that they should look like, so many people in public feel as though they need to make it a life’s work to get to that body that everyone talks about but few have, not knowing that it wont ever be perfect enough. Another article I felt that showed some relevance to this idea of body image was, Chicken-Hips. This article after reading it showed a more positive view of body image; the only problem is that it is not based of our country but the country of another continent. In Africa women who are skinny and bony show no attraction to the men of the region, they prefer women who are plumper and consist of more shapes. The men of this region feel that women with this added weight have more character and are considered richer in spirit and physical beauty than those who don’t; therefore they are more sought after then women who in our society are skinny and model looking, like the men in out country seek. I use this article with the intention that it is the complete opposite of what men in America want and therefore shows somewhat of a positive outlook on bodies being there own and what people want them to look like. I know the women are only characterized this way in the African region but what if the same can be with men? That would put our country into a huge heap or people being comfortable with their bodies and no more criticism or people killing themselves for the perfect body would ever happen again. From the article, “It was obvious I fell short of their ideal of beauty.”(Pigott 248). Doesn’t this always seem to happen in today’s world? People are never good enough for anyone else and people in everyday life are always falling short of the expectations of other in American society. With reading this other article is shows that this is not only happening in America but in other regions of the world also, its an epidemic that must be controlled and people must see that it is too hard and too complicated to make everyone have the perfect body or at the most make everyone comfortable with their body even when they have that so called body. The last article that was chosen to be compared to this idea was the article of, Fat and Happy? The main idea of this article throws around the idea that it is ok to be fat, and in the long run, being fat will mean that you will be happy. They have theories and other ideas that show that fat people are more generous in their giving; they are a lot less angry and possessive. They have a better loving persona and much more gentle then thin people, the thesis this author tosses around is the idea of a much better world if everyone was fat, and asks the question, wouldn’t the world be a better and kinder place, if people were fat? So, why can’t America be like this? Why does everyone have to be so skinny to be perfect? We live in such a society that everyone has to be skinny, well why don’t the public of America take this article to heart and let everyone be happy, let everyone be fat, it might make the world better, anger will not be so fluent in American and things will just be overall so much better. There are some downsides that are said by these researchers, such as, fat people live in the past so if they were to get a job, a businessman would prefer one who is crazy over one is fat because the crazy person will know about new technologies and life in the new world while the fat person is way to passive for that business. From the article, “In a fat society, no one would be forced to such humiliating secrecy. All hunger would be honest hunger.”(Schwartz 256). This quote states the fact that in a society where everyone is the same and fat or everyone is maybe even skinny then eating would not be such a chore like it is in society now, now it is an act that people try to hide because they are ashamed of eating because it means you will get fatter, in this changing society eating wont matter, everyone will do it and no one will care, it will honestly be hunger and not just eating to eat. People should truly believe that living a world that is all fat would seriously be better. This criticism and perfect body image again we see just influences women but It does in fact effect men in the same way just the same or even more dramatic in the nature because men tend to take it to the next level and make it so much more extreme then it should just to hit that goal of the perfect body and making it in societies view of the perfect body. To conclude this research essay, our society is really messed up with hoe the public and media view people as having the body that everyone else should embrace. Another big problem is that people forget when they look at all the gorgeous models that are women and all those actresses that are in the movies and beautiful according to the society, that some tend to forget that men are in the same battle as women. Men fight this same fight just as much or even more for what they want and for what they think or feel they should have according to society’s image of the beautiful body. Something needs to be done. Its not something that can be done by one person but a society as a whole must come together and just dare to be fat and dare to be out of that norm that people are supposed to be, it needs to change and it starts with each and everyone of the public and anyone reading this. It starts now, make a difference.

Annotated Bibliography
Mustafa, Naheed. "My Body is My Own Business." The Globe and Mail (1993): 243-245. This article had to deal with how people need to mind their own business when it comes to worrying about eachothers bodies. And about how not everyone has to have the perfect body just everyone needs to be their own person.
Pigott, Catherine. "Chicken-Hips." The Globe and Mail (1990): 246-249. This article had to talk about a women who was very thin and then was put into the culture in africa where women who are heavier are more sought after. The women was very skinny and just got ripped on by the heavier women for not having as many curves as the men in africa desired.
Potter, Alicia. "Mirror Image." Info Please. 25 Nov. 2007 <http://www.infoplease.com/spot/mbi1.html>. The website explained the key similarities that dealt with how men feel the same about women about their own bodies to show how much the same men actually stress about their bodies just as much as women do about theirs.
Rempel, Byron. "The Brad Pitt Syndrome." Askmen.Com. 30 Nov. 2007 <http://www.askmen.com/fashion/austin/38_fashion_style.html>. This website explained something call the Brad Pitt Syndrome, which dealt with the idea that mean want to be like him and have his sculpted body and looks. Some men work very hard sometimes with no results to look like him and becomes a quest that men will go through eating disorders just to have the perfect body.

Schwartz, Hillel. "Fat and Happy?" Never Satisfied: a Cultural History of Diets (1986): This article tells about the study about how overweight people or people who are not necessarily thin tend to me more loving and happy then people who are thin. The study just showed how people who are more fat tend to have more general love for life.