In today's American culture, society's view of beauty is controlled by Hollywood, where celebrities are constantly in the spotlight. The media watches Hollywood's every move and is quick to ridicule "A-listers" every time they dare gain a few pounds or reveal an uncontrollable pimple. The media has created a grossly distorted mental image of what should be considered beautiful, and with nearly all girls of middle and high school age reading and viewing this message, the idea has been instilled in them as well. This view of beauty is causing many teenage girls to become obsessed with a highly problematic and unattainable goal of perfection. Alexandra Scaturchio, in her article “Women in the Media” (2008) describes the media's idea of ​​beauty as superficial. He supports his argument by placing two images side by side; an image of a real, normal-looking woman and her image after it has been significantly digitally enhanced. Its aim is to show young teenagers that the models they envy for their appearance are not real people, but computer projects. She also states, “the media really distorts the truth and instills this false hope in women because…they will live their lives and never truly achieve this ideal.” Scaturchio wants his readers to realize the distorting capabilities of the media and feel beautiful about themselves, even with their flaws. In addition to planting false hope in the minds of easily persuaded young girls, this frightening vision of "beauty" now booming in Western cultures is shockingly leading to high rates of low self-esteem and eating disorders. In a National Report on the State of Self-Esteem published by the Dove Self-Esteem Fund (June 2008), it was reported that a crisis of self-esteem is prevalent in University...... middle of paper... ...an industry billion dollar beauty. He claims that “scientific studies have shown that humans are hardwired to respond more positively to beautiful people.” He also cites a recent report published by the University of Bristol stating that Neanderthals were “doing up” as early as 50,000 years ago, all in the hope of attracting a mate with the possibility of successfully reproducing (Zilhao 2009). However, while we as humans might be a little inclined to look for beauty in our surroundings, modern standards have become out of control and are completely unacceptable. As Confucius said “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it”. True beauty is not what is outside, but what is inside. Young Americans need to learn to distinguish between the two, and they will never learn how until something changes in the daily messages thrown at them.