Telling Children They Are Beautiful

It is widely known that American society places a huge emphasis on beauty. In an effort to discover how looks began to become so significant in determining the future of one's success, studies have been conducted on children and infants.

According to one such study, infants who were simultaneously shown images of regular people and models, it was discovered that the babies preferred to stare at the photographs of the models much more than those of the ordinary citizen. Conductors of the study have theorized that this signals a biological precondition to beauty and what a human being is supposed to look like.

On Thursday, the 18^th of January, Rosie O'Donnell told a story about her youngest daughter, Vivian, who is four years old. Vivian and a friend were discussing their ages and how Vivian would always be one year younger than her friend. Upon being told this, Vivian exclaimed, "Well, I'm much more beautiful than you." Her friend responded with, "Vivian, we are both equally beautiful."

This shows a lot about American society and our infatuation with beauty, especially using beauty to get a leg up on "the competition." At only four years old, a young girl knows already to use her looks to make a point, and this is a sad truth.

In 2001, a documentary entitled "Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen" was made for television. In this film, we saw how children learned to use their sexuality to become the most striking girl on stage. Viewers witnessed little girls using their looks to win over the adult men and boys with whom they came into contact. This was a learned behavior.

When most people see a beautiful child, the first comment they have for either the parent or the child [him/herself] regards their physicality. This sends the immediate reaction that looks are the most important attribute because they are the first thing used to develop an impression.

If a child is repeatedly told how beautiful he or she looks, that child will ultimately begin to view beauty as an important attribute to other people, and will begin to stress the importance of beauty in other people.

It is rather shocking to discover how young of an age children begin realizing this and using it to their benefit. Beauty finds its history in math and proportions. Pythagoras discovered that those items found in nature which were the most proportional were likewise the most attractive. This has since been applied to the human face, hence babies being more taken by the symmetrical faces of models.

Whether you believe beauty is objective or subjective, you must agree that society stresses its importance.