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Essay / Youth-Obsessed Culture
While many cultures celebrate the aging process, in our Western society, looking young is an obsession and growing old is never celebrated. We often associate being old with the bad - poor health, poor appearance, dependency, disability and irrelevance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In 2015, 51,140 surgical procedures were reported. This is up from 45,406 the previous year. The cosmetic procedure industry is booming and it is becoming more and more popular to have work done to look “younger” and more “beautiful”. In particular, there has been an increase in non-surgical treatments such as Botox to reduce wrinkles, where the average patients are aged 35 to 55, an age when most women start or feel old. People want to look good and aging can make women feel ugly and worthless because of how our society and the beauty industry has been portrayed. There are thousands of products that claim to be anti-aging, proving that the beauty world promotes that youthful and prepubescent skin is beautiful. The exorbitant prices of certain products play on people's insecurity about aging. The “beauty myth” promoted by brands and products shows what 40 and 50 year old women should look like in an ideal world using aging celebrities. For example, Jennifer Aniston, who is 48 years old and doesn't look over 30, as she reportedly spends £1,353.95 PER MONTH just on her face. Virtually every public figure, from politicians to actors to television presenters, has had work done on their faces. or their body to make them stay young and freeze time. Along with the procedures that celebrities undertake to remain beautiful, in advertisements their skin, hair, body and features are all retouched and photoshopped, ultimately giving women an inauthentic and misleading version of what they should look like. Keep in mind: This is just a sample.Get a custom paper from our expert writers now.Get a Custom EssayWe are bombarded daily with images in TV commercials, magazines, billboards and on the Internet. It's all about the image, not the experience and wisdom behind the faces. Why, when before gray hair and wrinkles coincided with patience, self-awareness and wisdom? As Hannibal Lecter said to Clarice in “The Silence of the Lambs,” “we begin by coveting what we see every day.” Advertisements and social media present young people as sexy, attractive, cool and connected. Look at any magazine, movie, video game or TV show and it's easy to see. There is no greater compliment we can give than to say, “Wow! You look so young! Even in children's films like Disney's Tangled, Mother Gothel used Princess Rapunzel's magical hair to keep her "young and beautiful", showing society's younger generation that looking old and wrinkled is ugly..