Americans Fixate Too Much on Appearance

Good health and inner beauty matter more than the superficial

Photo by Taan Huyn on Unsplash

I have acquaintances who obsess about themselves. They spend a lot of time making sure they look beautiful. They stress if they gain a few pounds. They post selfies.

This is all part and parcel of what I consider America’s narcissistic culture.

With the body positivity movement, now we celebrate people who are obese as much as we celebrate those who are skinny. The problem isn’t that we shouldn’t love and accept all shapes and sizes. We should. But… why are we focusing so much on appearance? Why do so many people care what strangers think of them?

Of course the best way to impress strangers is to look good. What else do they have to go on?

They don’t know about someone’s wicked sense of humor or keen intelligence or stunning generosity. They haven’t experienced meaningful experiences together.

So they judge based on the superficial. What ever happened to the deep stuff that makes life meaningful?

My grandmother lived in India, where she raised her children. She took two trains every day to bring them freshly prepared tiffin at lunchtime. These were metal stacked containers that held three items — dal, vegetables, rice, and…