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looks do matter According to careerbuilder.com, it’s a good idea to leave photos out of job resumes. Looks are irrelevant when being hired, and potential employers tend to avoid or disregard these resumes. In a Social Science Research Network study, good-looking females who sent photos with their resumes received 6 percent less job callbacks than normal-looking women and 23 percent less than women without pictures in their resume. However, attractive-looking men received a significantly larger amount of callbacks than plain-looking men and men without photos because they are believed to be “happier, healthier, more intelligent, lucky in marriage,” according to a Business Insider article. In the article, it is believed that when employers review candidates for a job, attractive women who include photos of themselves are seemingly trying too hard to market themselves and can be considered less serious than other candidates.
BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder) According to the Mayo Clinic website, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a chronic illness in which the sufferer constantly sees flaws in their appearance, whether they are minor or imagined. BDD is caused by chemical and structural differences in the brain, genetics or the cultural environment in which one lives. Symptoms of this disorder are extreme selfconsciousness, frequent examination using or avoidance of mirrors, refusal to appear in pictures, excessive grooming and general preoccupation with physical appearance, among other behaviors.
BMI info As part of a new law enacted in Israel last month, any model with a BMI (body mass index) lower than 18.5 is ineligible to work in the fashion industry. This means that models who are six feet tall must weigh at least
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April 27, 2012
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
OPINON
Looking good is a matter of what makes you happy, not anyone else. I realized I wasn’t cute somewhere around 8 or 9 years old. From the ages of 3 to 7, I was the center of attention at family gatherings, but then, as it always goes, another younger kid came into the limelight and I was old news. It’s just the family dynamic. I don’t mean to sound bitter about it, though, because that letdown was exactly what I needed — I had to figure out a way to deal with not being wanted fairly quickly. My happiness wasn’t based on my looks, but simply a matter of doing what I enjoyed and realizing that I enjoyed it without other people. Years went on and I found that I began to develop a distaste for more attractive people — not out of jealousy, but simply out of anger. I thought they were all conceited and self-absorbed. I leapt from one extreme to another, simply because I could. I always thought in black and white, until one day I sat down with a really beautiful girl in my eighth grade English class. We were forced to work together, and I had one of the most fascinating conversations of my life. I realized that looks and intelligence were not mutually exclusive. You see, the thing about how you look, your body image, everything about you, is that it doesn’t matter. People have this idea in their heads that being attractive,
136.5 pounds, and a model who is five-feet, eight inches tall is required to weigh at least 119 pounds. The law is also expected to cut down on fashion magazines’ use of Photoshop to make models appear thinner because any advertisement in which the model appears ‘underweight’
is not allowed to be run. According to ibtimes.com, these requirements are intended to break the illusion that the body figures that models have are real. BMI is a weight-to-height ratio determined by the World Health Organization (WHO). The measurement is defined as a person’s weight (in kilograms)
unattractive, average or anything in between actually matters. I’m not here to tell you to be comfortable with yourself and stop wearing makeup, or stop working out. If you want to work out, do it. But don’t work out because you want people to notice you; don’t put on makeup because you think it will make you more appealing to others. The difference between making yourself happy or sad is who you’re trying to look good for. Looking good is your own business, and that’s all that matters. If you need to look good to feel better about yourself, nobody can blame you. If it helps you be yourself, then you have all the right in the world to work out and put on makeup. Some people, however, don’t feel the need to spend their time attempting to look their best every day, and they can’t be blamed for that. There are people who don’t think they should care, and that decision needs to be respected. A situation like this is a two-way street; neither party feels completely comfortable — the attractive people feel that pretension might rule them, and the unattractive, that they won’t be taken seriously because of their sub-par visages. In the end all, you need to do is be whatever you’re happy with, and let everyone else be happy, too.
by sam belmyer
divided by their height squared (in meters). According to this measurement, any BMI under 18.5 is underweight; the normal range of BMI is 18.5–24.99; a BMI between 25 and 30 is overweight; and any BMI measuring over 30 is classified as obese.