Wear this look, style, colours, dip your hair in this rinse or scrub your face a dozen times with that peel and it should do it! What they keep silent on is how to gain those extra inches, lighten that skin to a natural peaches-n-cream or widen those shoulders to ‘make it’. It’s all about not being born a ‘tad’ so and therefore never quite making it to the dreamy few who rule the beauty roost.

Does advertising and media per se decide your body image? You bet it does! For instance as ‘fair and lovely’ whips up record revenues across the country does it matter that we are a nation where ‘brown’ should be beautiful?

So how did it all get so crazy or askew is the question?

Biologists and evolutionary scientists trace appearance, symmetrical body structures as basic (if not the primary) criteria of sexual attractiveness in animals. Evidence across a range of species shows that colours, shapes and sizes have to do with the show-and-tell nature of mate competition. Here, physical symmetry and attractiveness is an advertisement of genetic fitness and therefore better offspring. Evolutionary psychologists, suggest that in the early days of primates, males would choose a mate who was young and hence most likely to bear healthy children. In the absence of methods of knowing the biological age of a person, they would rely on appearance.

Physical, sexual advertising then existed primarily and historically with a biological function to it- the ‘mating package’.

Could that indeed be the ‘biological’ concern amongst the young- adolescents, pre-teens and teens- instinctively pre-occupied with their personal appearance and their effect on others?

Well let’s look at what these numbers show?

· A study of purchase behaviour of young consumers, in the age group of 15 to 25 years from both urban and rural areas, in Kerala, shows that the product category bought most under the influence of TV advertisement is cosmetics and toiletries.

· In the U.S. the annual consumption of cosmetics/toiletries is greater than $8 billion. Each year, teenage girls, in the US, spend over $4 billion on cosmetics and some 90% of girls aged 14 and older regularly use cosmetics.
· Only 18% of American teenage boys have never used fragrances. Boys aged 13 to 17 make 12% of their fragrance purchases via the Internet, telephone, mail, television and shopping mall kiosks. Teen boys are attracted to fragrances they perceive as masculine, clean and fresh.
· In 2003, men spent more than U.S$16 billion worldwide for personal care products, reflecting greater than a 7% increase worldwide.
· In Spain, the age group of 15-25 years spends on average U.S.$9 billion in the cosmetic industry as a whole and make up the largest group that purchases fragrances.
· According to a study to be published by Kline & Company, the global market for cosmetics and toiletries reached nearly U.S.$150 billion in 2004, up by more than 4% from 2003. The United States is by far the world's largest market for cosmetics and toiletries with annual sales of $45 billion. From 2003 to 2004, cosmetic markets in China and India saw growth of 12.5% and 7.7%, respectively, and together surpassed the $10 billion mark.
· In a survey conducted in America 36% of girls and 28% of boys said they would like to change their "body" or "looks." They feel that altering body structure like the nose, cheeks, ears, eyes etc can help them to attain confidence and keep up with the ‘competitive’ world.
· The cosmetic surgery industry in the US is worth $300 million a year and in UK it is worth more than $225 million a year. In China the cosmetic surgery industry took in U.S.$ 2.4 billion in 2003.
· In the US, teenagers account for 4 per cent of the plastic surgery market, with 346,000 cosmetic procedures in the past year. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons says there has been a 14 per cent rise since 2003 in the number of under-18s undergoing cosmetic surgery. In the West, the most common operations performed on teenagers are breast augmentations, breast reductions, nose jobs and liposuction.
· In Asia, such as China, South Korea primary cosmetic obsession is with the eyes. Having bigger eyes is considered to be important for ‘success’. Teenagers as young as 14 are undergoing such surgeries.

Pre-teens and teens is a time when both boys and girls are searching for an ‘acceptable’ identity. They spend much time studying their reflected image; asking themselves questions like “How do I look?”- “How do others perceive me?” rather than the more substantive “Who am I?” “What will I become?” Popular culture and media images play upon these natural behavioral reactions and begin to focus a near fetish around their bodies.

‘Populist’ becomes a complete surrogate for the natural instinct for ‘popular’. Rather than cull out and reflect on their gifts, talents, uniqueness and potential they begin to jump on the fast train of ‘trendy’ hoping that hip-hop-happening will ride them all the way to dates, love affairs, great jobes and fine marriages. Well sometimes it does that (or comes close to) for some but for others perhaps it just sets up a long winding maze of never-ending cycles of buying/trying/preening/missing. What it does do for a vast majority is build a serious low-self image which lies not too deep under the paint, polish and bleached surface.

Perhaps it just becomes our foundation for a life-long war with the body we have and the body we desire. Directing precious time, money and energy into chasing that which will remain an illusion and eclipsing the self that may catapult us to the moon.

What do you think? Does this obsessive body-slant not reflect a larger industry conspiracy to keep us unhappy and ‘wanting’ a different self? Does it not homogenize the concept of beauty to mean fair, blonde, long-legged, muscular, tall and amber-eyed? What does that mean to a world created in variety with a myriad different faces and shapes to choose from? Does this beauty bandwagon not eat into precious creative, artistic and intellectual resources, which seem to get the back burner? Does it singularly damage the sexual and emotional self-esteem of those who do not ‘make’ the grade? In fact by selling their own concept of ‘sexy’ does advertising in fact make us ‘unsexy’ in our own eyes?