Beauty

G2--20

UNIVERSITY OF EL SALVADOR
WESTERN MULTIDISCIPLINARY CAMPUS
LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT

READINGS AND CONVERSATION I

TUTOR:
MARIO MENDEZ

STUDENT`S NAME:

JOSE ENRIQUE RUIZ MOLINA

TOPIC:

BEAUTY AND PHYSICAL
ATTRACTIVENESS

WEDNESDAY, NOBEMBER 01, 2011

Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION......................................................................................... ... 1
A GENERAL CONCEPT ABOUT BEAUTY…………………….…..…..…….. …2
HUMAN BEAUTY……………………….……………………………………………….……………...2
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF BEAUTY? ………………………………………………………..3
BEAUTY IS ONLY A SKIN DEEP………………………………………………….…….………...…5
INNERBEAUTY………………...................................................................................6
OUTER BEAUTY……………………………………………………………………………………………7
WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT INNER OR OUTER BEAUTY…………………….…….….8
THE IMPACT OF MEDIA IN OUR MINDS………………………………………………………..8
UNATTAINABLE BEAUTY……………………………………………………………………… …….10
THE CULTURE OF THE THINNERS……………………………………………………….…………10
SELF-IMPROVEMENT OR SELF-DESTRUCTION……………………………………………...12
THE DEMAND OF PLASTIC SURGERY PROCEDURES………………………………….….12CULTURAL VARIATIONS ABOUT BEAUTY………………………………………………………14
CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………………..…...15

Introduction
Even though most of us recognize the fallacy of placing too great a value on appearance, our desire for physical beauty is so ingrained in us that we cannot disassociate ourselves from it. Why is physical beauty so important?
Because of the natural role of appearance in humancourtship, we can say with certainty that physical beauty does have some objective importance. However, this conclusion does not justify our society’s obsession with looks, for appearance is only the first layer of attractiveness. Once a superficial connection is made between two people, they then have the opportunity to display other characteristics that could positively or negatively affect thepossibility of their union. After they have had enough experiences together, that first layer of beauty becomes far less important than the other, less visible layers of attraction. In fact, it seems as if our original set of human impulses guides us not just towards procreation, but also towards compatibility
Compatibility is essential to human survival in an absolute sense, for apositively-working team is better equipped to live than a negatively-working team. If physical beauty were the only important factor in bringing people together, the divorce rate would be much higher than it is today and people would be far less happy. Instead, physical beauty is actually only a small component of attractiveness, and in fact, those people who are good at being compatible have a distinctadvantage against those people who possess beauty alone.
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Beauty concepts
How do we define physical beauty? Is there an objective way to define attractiveness?
We try and determine what beauty really is and how it is determined and perceived. Quotes about beauty and not just the physical, outer appearance kind but also about inner beauty abound. There are thousands of sayings about how beauty willfade, how beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, about how what matters at the end of the day is what is on the inside. But none of these quotations ever seem to answer the question, what is beauty. It is a difficult question and any answer is a subjective answer making it impossible for one person to determine for the planet at large, the definition of beauty.

Despite the varying ideas about truebeauty that we have, research studies have shown that when it comes to a question like what is beauty, across cultures the perception of beauty has many similarities. Most people tend to find the same things beautiful.

Human beauty
The characterization of a person as “beautiful”, whether on an individual basis or by...