The world is becoming frighteningly obsessed with looking perfect. More so with women, for whom ‘normal’ has long faded out of fashion. Blame it on the air brushed beauties on the silver screen; the obsessive urge to look flawless has its spell on every girl next door. No wonder then that they go to any lengths — turn bulimic, anorexic and even resort to plastic surgery to look good.

Recent studies have shown that women are so obsessed with their looks — in a noxious, negative way — that half of them have no qualms lying about their weight while almost a third cut the size labels out of their clothing. And not quite astoundingly, only one in about 50 women is happy with the way her body looks. Surveys revealed most women worry about their body every 15 minutes and about one third worry about how they look every waking minute.

So everybody seems to be terribly dissatisfied with how they look and some are wiling to go under the knife too. Name it — aquiline nose, curvaceous shape, unblemished skin you can have it all. But how many times will you get yourself ‘fixed’? Is it as far as your wallet allows you?

More and more people are seeking new-age treatment to look more gorgeous. It makes one wonder if beauty comes with a price too. This is creating misconception that if you have

your purse loaded you

can buy beauty and with beauty everything else that matters. But does that also mean beauty is not a creation of nature anymore? Definitely not. It’s just that we need a reality check on a world that is trying too hard to be perfect.

If the women on the ramps, red-carpets and billboards are portraying perfection, where does that leave us? In the real world, of course! But it will take a while for everyone to believe that it’s okay to look the way we do.

Technology might help people be more perfect physically, but looking beautiful wouldn’t matter much then as it does now. Nothing would be impossible, the near-perfect symmetry of the face, svelte figure and porcelain skin.

But beauty isn’t skin deep as the popular saying goes. It is always the inner beauty that truly matters. And it’s about time we realised that!