I've got the a hypothesis about the current American standards of beauty but neither the energy nor the means to go about testing it.

After a series of conversations with a Chinese friend about what Americans (and/or "Western People") consider attractive, I stumbled upon this possible realization. American culture in general seems less concerned with the lines of people's faces or their natural skin tone or what have you than it is with how much work seems to have gone into a person's appearance.

For men, this means that culturally-sanctioned attractiveness is most often measured by apparent athleticism. The ever-elusive Washboard Abs and soforth being a sign that one works out, thus putting effort into one's appearance, which makes oneself worthy of being considered attractive.

For women, the standard is, of course, harsher as it includes not only the athletic requirements of the male standard but also a whole host of other ones. Apparent time spent on hair, makeup and clothing are included - although looking as though one has spent an ill-defined too much time or effort on any of these is also discouraged.

The pop-culture concept of female attactiveness seems to me to have little to nothing to do with a woman's actual looks and everything to do with how much effort she puts into her appearance.

Of course, various things go in and out of style but that's a feature, not a bug. Extending the effort to keep up with the constantly changing styles means that a woman spends even more time and money on her appearance, thus, again, making herself worthy of being considered attractive by the standards of the fashion mags or whatever.

This is, of course, great for the beauty industry and gym memberships and soforth. It's in their best interest to convince people that they won't be found attractive without the right shade of toner or sufficiently "rock-hard" abs.

But of course, all of this institutionalized stupidity can't totally overcome the human propensity to find each other attractive regardless of makeup or build or what have you, so the people who don't meet the "standard" (i.e. pretty much everyone) are still plenty attractive to at least some other people.

I have had it with television ads trying to make everyone insecure in their bodies.  To hell with that bullshit. You don't need to look ten years younger. You don't need to look like a bodybuilder. You don't need to fry your hair to give it a texture it doesn't naturally have. You don't need to selectively remove hair from your body in order to be attractive. You don't need to pluck, tease, squeeze, lift and separate, binge and purge, weigh, measure, or scrutinize yourself in order to be a worthwhile human being.

So, say, once a week, get up and do this:

Shower if you feel like it. Brush your teeth. Brush your hair.
And then stop.
Look in the mirror and say: I am a perfectly normal and attractive human being.

It doesn't matter if you don't believe it because of all the lies the beauty industry has told you. Just do it.

Because the world has too many other problems for millions of us to spend hours every day worrying about living up to a cultural beauty standard that can't be achieved without photoshop anyway.
You're not a digitally altered photograph.
You're a human being. Never, ever be ashamed of that.