In a society that has come to value skin tone, weight and appearance more highly than personality I feel it's increasingly important to remain focused on one's natural and "inner beauty." From MTV to Glamour magazine we are bombarded daily with criteria in which to judge another human being on. Photographers are just dying to snap a photo of an overweight celebrity in her bathing suite. In fact you cannot even buy groceries anymore without seeing one of these pictures on the cover of a popular magazine. Have we as a society really become this shallow?

I feel we have produced a growing population of individuals who value appearances more highly than values, politics and their fellow human beings. Ask yourself, "When I see someone what is the first thing I notice?" If course it's their appearance, their hair, their weight, clothes and so on. How often can you look at someone and say, "Wow, look at the sense of humor on her!" Or, "Now that is one honest looking guy!" Of course you cannot make these determinations by just looking at someone, you have to get to know them. How often do we as a society pass up this chance to meet someone special because of their appearance?

My premise is this. Looks fade. In fact billions of dollars are spent a year to try and reverse the aging process using face lifts, collagen injections and plastic surgery to maintain your "beauty." However, I see very little emphasis by the media on maintaining your core values, being an honest person, and treating others with dignity and respect. How much time and effort is spent on use developing ourselves as human beings? When is the last time you saw an advertisement empowering you to be a "good" person. Or to judge others on who they are rather than what brand of clothing they were. I feel as a society we have become numb to the constant bombardment of vanity and pride that we seem to value so highly. You may be concerned with your appearances, but are you just as concerned if you become shallow, vain an unappreciative of others?

Why are we as a society valuing vanity, sense of style, and pride more highly than someone's inner personality? Trends and fashions are constantly changing and are in fact dictated by a very small portion of our population. Typically popular celebrities and fashion "experts" will determine the next new fade. What in history has remained unchanging, however, is who you are a human being. Treating other as you would want to be treated, upholding family values and portraying honesty all see to have taken a back seat to our own vanity.

As I state in many of my articles I am a huge advocate of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and being physically fit. I am by no means saying we should all let ourselves go to the point of becoming unhealthy, but I am saying I feel our society's values may have become mismatches over the decades. Can you honestly say you haven't noticed this trend everywhere you look?

If you are interested in losing weight I would recommend a do-it-yourself, natural program I used called Weight Lose 4 Idiots.