Am I beautiful?

If you want to see me fly off the handle stand in line with me at the grocery store and point out the covers of magazines.

Models with flawless, perfectly sculpted, digitally-altered and airbrushed bodies are surrounded by the latest miracle diets and beauty products.

Alongside them are headlines claiming to teach women how to please their men in bed and how to altertheir behavior and appearance to become “beautiful” and worthy of love. This all screams out in unison to women, “You’re not good enough!”

I recently tagged along with a friend to a day spa. While she purchased beauty products, I was accosted by a frozen-faced day spa attendant who did her best to show me exactly how ugly I am. She asserted that if I didn’t start preventative maintenance soon (I’m 27) there would be no hope for me.

She stood me in front of a mirror and had me scrunch my face to show all my wrinkles while she advocated Botox. She then ran her finger across my cheek, grimaced, and said an acid peal would take care of the unsightly color imbalance on my face.

She said they could inject a chemical into my body that would melt the fat away like butter as she pinched my thigh to show me the unsightly flab I’m supposed to be ashamed of.

After calling me fat, she educated me that my upper lip is entirely too thin. She said it was “urgently” in need of collagen injections to get the full pouty affect that “drives men wild.”

If I had all of these procedures done I’d be a man-candy magnet. She told me she would bring the “timeless beauty” that is hiding behind $6,000 worth of my physical imperfections to the surface.

I went home that night with pamphlets about the procedures I needed to have done so I could be beautiful.

Beautiful like the women in the magazines. Beautiful like the woman from the day spa, whose entire face (with exception of her collagen-injected lips) didn’t move.

I looked in the mirror and thought “Is that what this is about? Beauty?”

If I burn my face with acid, inject myself with botchalism and chemically burn my fat away, then I’d finally be beautiful? According to the day-spa-demon and “Cosmo,” only after cosmetic surgery, diet pills and other such mechanisms will I be unstoppably gorgeous and worthy of affection.

Forgive my boldness, but I already feel unstoppably gorgeous. And if I start to feel un-gorgeous, I take steps to become healthier so I can return my body and mind to a healthy state of balance. I eat healthy food, exercise and make sure the voice in my head matches those healthy lifestyle choices by affirming my self-worth internally.

To me, “healthy” does not mean supermodel thin. I like my soft, feminine curves. Call me crazy, but I’m not worried about being thin. I want to be strong and beautiful from the inside out.

I’m not perfect. Far from it actually. But according to the men I’ve dated and other people who love me, they’re far too busy admiring my laugh, my intellect and my confident and genuine smile (and yes, even the junk in my trunk) to concern themselves with analyzing my “imperfections.” And if they were analyzing those imperfections, then to hell with them.

Am I beautiful? Hell yes I am! And you are too. If you don’t see that when you look in the mirror, don’t turn to “Cosmo” or the day spa to help you. Help yourself. Don’t measure your self-worth by listening to the media or the people in your life who make you feel bad about being you. Cultivate your self-worth and standard of beauty.

Start making healthier choices, not just in your diet, but in your mind. If you don’t believe you’re beautiful, no amount of dieting or plastic surgery will get you there.

SHANNON MORGAN
Assistant Opinion Editor

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