Body Image in Hollywood
Hollywood bodies - all eyes are on them all the time. Hollywood celebrities often appear slim, toned and healthy-looking, with perfect skin and hair.
Hollywood is the land of beautiful bodies where body image is everything, but is the story behind it quite so beautiful?
Celebrity Bodies on the Beach
Celebrities are often snapped frolicking on the beach, looking super-toned in their string bikinis, and are the envy of everyone. They have the best beach bodies. But the reason we see them is partly because they often flaunt themselves knowing they are going to be photographed.
Celebrities face intense scrutiny by the media, which has been argued, they often themselves invite.
In Hollywood it is necessary to be seen as perfect. In Hollywood physical perfection is deemed as the epitome of success, and the pressure to reach it is immense in this image obsessed culture.
Hollywood Body Parts and Plastic Surgery
Still, all is not lost in Hollywood, because in Hollywood you can buy any body part you want, and have access to the best treatments and surgeons.
Facelifts, nose jobs, botox, liposuction, cosmetic dentistry, hair replacement, knee sculpting, rib removal, implants, collagen injections, fat injections and fat grafting (having fat removed from one part of the body and transferring it to another), are all procedures available to image-obsessed people with money.
Sounds gruesome, but the truth is body enhancing surgery is very popular. Many celebrities seem to be ageing remarkably well (including men), although they may or may not deny having had work done.
Real Celebrity Bodies
Tyra Banks faced such intense speculation over whether her 34-inch chest was in fact real, she went to the trouble of having a sonogram live on her talk show to prove that she had not had implants.
Furthermore, Tyra is quoted as saying "Self-love has very little to do with how you feel about your outer self. It's about accepting all of yourself" (Source: IMDb).
Hollywood may appear magical, and allow people to buy body parts so they can feel good about the way they look, but it can't fight ageing, sagging, wobbling and wrinkling forever. So then what?
As the saying goes, it's what's on the inside that counts.