BEAUTY

DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH

THIS SAYINGS?
Everything has beauty, but not everybody sees it.
As we grow old, the beauty steals inward. - Ralph
Waldo Emerson
Beauty is only skin deep
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Beauty is but a lease from nature.
Though we travel the world over to fi nd the beautiful,
we must carry it with us or we fi nd it not. - Ralph
Waldo Emerson

BODY IMAGE
A survey of English schoolchildren shows boys and
girls are worrying about the way they look. The study
found that over half of male schoolchildren lacked
confi dence because of their body shape. The fi gure for
girls was slightly higher, at 59 per cent. Researchers
questioned 693 teachers about how their students felt
about their bodies. All the children had taken lessons on
body image and self-esteem.
Teachers gave a number of reasons why children as
young as four years old are stressing out about their
shape. Over 90 per cent of teachers blame the Internet
and television. Children see images of "perfect" bodies
every day and they feel they have to look that way too.
Almost 30 per cent of teachers said their female students
used sunbeds or sprays to look suntanned. Many children
are on diets to make themselves attractive to the
opposite sex. One elementary school teacher said: "I work
with four to fi ve-year-olds and some say things like, 'I

B O DY W O RRI ES : What do you worry about most? Rank th e se and

share your ranking s with your partn er. Put the bigge st w orrie s at
th e top. Change partn er s often and sh are your rankings.
body s hape
te e th
nose
Skin s tomach
bottom
mus cle s
Wr inkle s
AP P E ARAN CE : Spe nd on e min ute writing down all of the diff e re nt
word s you associate with the w ord 'appe arance '. S hare your w ords
with your partne r(s ) and talk about the m. Toge th er , put the word s
into diff e re nt cate g orie s.

QUESTIONS
What springs to mind when you hear the term 'body
image?
Do you worry about your body image?
What do you think about schoolchildren worrying about
their looks?
Were you teased at school?
Do images on TV make people think less of themselves?
Do you look at pictures of models and feel bad about your
body?
Is there such a thing as a "perfect" body?
What should teachers / schools do to make kids more
confi dent?
Should advertising companies stop airbrushing photos of
models?

BEAUTY STANDARDS
What are the standards of beauty in your country for
women? And for men?
Is it possible to live up to these standards?
How do these standards diff er in other countries?
BEAUTY AROUND THE WORLD

TATTOOS AND COSMETIC SURGERY

What are the pros and cons of both?

Debatewise